Man City star voted the best player aged 21 or under at the start of the Premier League campaign<\/p>\n
Nico O’Reilly has been voted the 2025\/26 Premier League Young Player of the Season.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The versatile 21-year has been a revelation for Manchester City<\/a> this season, playing in multiple roles throughout their title-chasing campaign.<\/p>\n See: Every Young Player of the Season<\/a><\/p>\n “After my first appearances in senior football last season, I knew this year I could have the opportunity to play more and help the team as much as possible if I worked hard,” O’Reilly told Man City’s official website<\/a> after winning the award.<\/p>\n “To get so many minutes and earn the trust of the manager and my team-mates has been the greatest achievement in my career so far.<\/p>\n “I\u2019m excited to finish the season strong tomorrow and then head to my first [FIFA] World Cup before joining back up with City and working hard again next season.”<\/p>\n O’Reilly’s path to the first team<\/p>\n A boyhood fan of City, O’Reilly<\/a> progressed through the club’s age groups after signing with the academy aged eight.<\/p>\n He captained Man City’s Under-18s to the Premier League title in that particular category in 2022\/23 and, after impressing in the elite development squad, O’Reilly made his breakthrough into the senior side last season.<\/p>\n O’Reilly’s progress has been little short of sensational, making 34 appearances and having eight goal involvements (five goals, three assists) while playing a part in nine clean sheets.<\/p>\n Watch: The best of O’Reilly this season\u00a0<\/p>\n By combining his strength, ball-playing ability and tireless energy, O’Reilly has emerged as one of the division’s most complete all-round players, and is equally effective both defending and attacking.<\/p>\n Following Man City’s 2-1 home win over Newcastle United<\/a> in February, when O’Reilly scored both of the Blues’ goals and was named Player of the Match<\/a>, Guardiola spoke in glowing terms about his young star.<\/p>\n “He\u2019s played full-back, played holding midfielder when Rodri was not there, now he\u2019s in his position [central midfield],” Guardiola said.<\/p>\n “I know the pace he has. What a player. He has made an incredible step up and he has had a lot of minutes, but he deserves it.”<\/p>\n Watch: All five of O’Reilly’s goals this season<\/p>\n O’Reilly, who also netted two goals in the EFL Cup final to seal a 2-0 win over Arsenal<\/a> at Wembley Stadium, was handed his senior England debut against Serbia last November and was recently named Premier League Academy Graduate of the Year<\/a>. He started Man City’s FA Cup final win against Chelsea<\/a> earlier this month.<\/p>\n It has truly been a remarkable season for O’Reilly, who wins the Premier League Young Player of the Season award after votes from supporters were combined with those of a panel of experts. The shortlist of eight players<\/a> aged 21 or under at the start of season also included his Man City team-mate Rayan Cherki.<\/a><\/p>\n Also in this series<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Man City star voted the best player aged 21 or under at the start of the Premier League…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":600144,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[33],"tags":[218,101,1602,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-600143","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-football","tag-football","tag-sports","tag-text","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/600143","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=600143"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/600143\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/600144"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=600143"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=600143"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=600143"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}