‘We smell blood’: O’Reilly believes Wembley glory can reignite Manchester City title bid
Nico O’Reilly has said Manchester City are ready to hunt down Arsenal while Rodri believes the Carabao Cup final victory can be a springboard in title race
Nico O’Reilly says Manchester City “smell blood” as they hunt down Arsenal’s nine-point Premier League advantage after their 2-0 Carabao Cup final win on Sunday.
Two second-half headers by O’Reilly defeated Arsenal at Wembley to give his side the season’s first major trophy. City have a game in hand on the leaders and host them on 19 April at the Etihad Stadium.
The 21‑year‑old O’Reilly was asked on CBS Sports Golazo if he smells blood in the water regarding catching Arsenal. “Yes, 100%,” he said. “The blood never went – we’ve always smelt blood.
“We’re confident in ourselves, we know we can do it. They’ve got to come to our place, which is a tough place to come to as everyone has seen this season. So we do smell blood and we’ve got to keep going.
“It [winning the final] does a lot for us, builds momentum and just push on now. It’s a big blow for them. They were going for everything, just as we were [before defeat against Real Madrid in the Champions League].”
O’Reilly said switching from left‑back to midfield, as he did against Real, can be a challenge. “I can have the games where I’m a bit off it as you’ve seen in the first 20 minutes away against Real Madrid in the Bernabéu.
“I got caught out in behind a few times so it is hard to keep switching, but to be a world-class player – which I’m trying to aspire to be – you need to be able to switch to different positions and adapt.”
He described how City created the moves for his goals against Arsenal. “It was to find the space in the right with Rayan Cherki. We’ve seen the spaces there because [Declan] Rice likes to jump into Rodri or Bernardo [Silva]. We’ve seen Cherki is the free man and that’s where the goals came from – the right side – so it worked.”
Rodri also believes City’s triumph can have a significant effect on the title race.
The midfielder said: “A lot, a lot. That’s why I say it’s a game not only for this title [League Cup] but to show that we can beat them.
“There is still a lot to do and it’s clear we didn’t want to go out of the Champions League, but we went out and now we have to take the positives, we have more time to prepare for the games. That’s something to take into account, but we also have to celebrate this.
“The Real Madrid game was pretty tough [losing 5-1 on aggregate], but the team has recovered. We knew it was a very important game against Arsenal not only because of the title, but also because we had to face the best team in the league. Now we need to rest, go back to the next round of internationals and come back with the optimism that we still have two more competitions to fight for.” City next face Liverpool in the FA Cup quarter-finals on 4 April.
Rodri had praise for the team’s support. “The fans have always been there for us – in the good times that we’ve had over the years and in the bad times,” the 29-year-old said. “We never doubted them, they are our support, they are the reason we do all this and they have taken us forward.”
City found Arsenal’s deep press difficult to break at Wembley, but towards the end of the first half began to assert themselves. Rodri explained what Pep Guardiola had said to the players during the break. “It was a calming talk – we were doing things well and didn’t have any problems,” he said.
“We were doing well in terms of pressure – it was more a matter of wanting to go for the game, not letting them take control. I felt like they dropped a bit physically, we detected it, and we wanted to go for them. You can tell when you have players who are good in the area and Nico O’Reilly has again shown his potential.”
The City chair, Khaldoon Al Mubarak, missed the final because of the escalation of the conflict in the Gulf. The United Arab Emirates has been subjected to airstrikes from Iran for the past three weeks and the UAE’s defence ministry released a statement on Sunday morning saying its defence systems were continuing to deal with ballistic, cruise missile and drone attacks from Iran.
It is understood his absence was a personal decision, not wishing to cause a distraction from events taking place in the UAE. As a senior member of Abu Dhabi’s executive council, Khaldoon also acts as a strategic adviser to the UAE government.
The 50-year-old has been a public and hands-on figure at City since the club was bought by Abu Dhabi’s ruling family 18 years ago and would normally attend big games such as cup finals, but was not present at Wembley. In his absence the City chief executive, Ferran Soriano, was the club’s most senior figure at the game.
City declined to comment.