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Nico O’Reilly has stated Manchester City “smell blood” as they hunt down Arsenal’s nine-point Premier League advantage following Sunday’s 2-0 Carabao Cup final triumph.
Two second-half headers by O’Reilly defeated Mikel Arteta’s team at Wembley to give City the season’s first major trophy. Pep Guardiola’s side have a game in hand on the leaders and host them next month at the Etihad Stadium.
On CBS Sports Golazo, the 21-year-old was asked if he smells blood in the water regarding catching Arsenal. He said: “Yeah, 100%. 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 does a lot for us [winning the final], builds momentum and just push on now. Obviously it’s a big blow for them. They were going for everything, just as we were [before Real Madrid Champions League defeat].”
O’Reilly admitted that switching from left-back to midfield as he did against Real can be a challenge. “It can be tough, 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,” he said. “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 so it’s a good attribute to have.”
He described how City created the moves for his headed goals against Arsenal. “It was to find the space in the right with Rayan Cherki,” he said. “We’ve seen the spaces there because [Declan] Rice likes to jump into Rodri or Bernardo [Silva] so we’ve seen Cherki is the free man and that’s where the goals came from – the right side – so it worked.
O’Reilly’s teammate Rodri also believes City’s Wembley triumph over Arsenal can have a significant impact on the title race.
After the dust had settled on the final, Rodri was asked if City’s victory over the Gunners could affect the destiny of the championship.
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. So that’s something to take into account – but we also have to celebrate this.
“The Real Madrid game was pretty tough [losing 5-1 overall] 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.”
While City next face Liverpool in the FA Cup quarter-finals in early April, Rodri praised 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.”
At Wembley, City found Arsenal’s deep press difficult to break but, towards the end of the opening half, began to assert themselves. Rodri was asked what Guardiola had said to the players during the break.
“I think it was a calming talk – we were doing things well and we didn’t have any problems,” he said. “We were doing well in terms of pressure – it was more a matter of personality 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.”
