This season Nico O’Reilly has very much established himself as a regular at Manchester City, making 10 Premier League appearances so far, scoring one goal and providing two assists.
It led to him picking up his first England cap on Thursday and impressing in the 2-0 win over Serbia.
Interestingly, however, left-back was not initially his calling.
Previously describing himself as a box-to-box midfielder who grew up admiring Yaya Toure and David Silva, he was deployed in the full-back role last season by manager Pep Guardiola through necessity because of injuries.
At one stage last term, City went on a run of one win in 13 games and boss Guardiola told BBC Sport the upturn in results after that “would be difficult to imagine” without O’Reilly’s contributions.
“I loved the emotion he plays with,” former Manchester United and England defender Phil Jones said.
“He is always controlled with his emotions for a young player, to play in those magnitude of games.
“He has got that real good state of mind – he plays on the edge, but he is calm.
England manager Thomas Tuchel added: “He seems to be very shy, he doesn’t speak a lot, but he is very intelligent on the pitch and adapted so well to all the new things we demand from him.”
