Pep Guardiola claimed he will ‘always regret’ not giving more minutes to some of his homegrown players this season after seeing Nico O’Reilly bring Manchester City to Wembley. City were trailing 1-0 to Bournemouth at the break when the 20-year-old came on and altered the game with two assists.
It was a performance that made the City manager proud of his ‘famous players’. Bernardo Silva, Mateo Kovacic, Kevin De Bruyne, and Ilkay Gundogan all began despite worries about their ability to match Bournemouth’s legs in midfield. Reported By Manchester evening News.
Guardiola later admitted that it was a conscious strategy not to match their hosts, but to force City to play the game that has brought them so much success. It didn’t look like it would work until O’Reilly replaced Abdukodir Khusanov after halftime, prompting the manager to ponder aloud whether he should have trusted them more during the team’s bad periods.
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“I learn from my period in Barcelona and here where there are a lot of academy players that they have one incredible attribute: they are not scared,” he told reporters.
“They adjust really quickly. When I watch [James] McAtee, Nico, or Rico [Lewis], I often wonder why I didn’t give them more minutes during this poor season. I will always feel a little bad about myself because there are players who deserved more minutes since their impact was so great when they played.
“But seeing the terrible situations might put a lot of strain on them. Maybe it’s wrong, because the young players are familiar with the surroundings and approach, which makes it simple.”
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