O'Reilly: City hungry to feed off Carabao Cup success

Wembley, Sunday — Nico O’Reilly, the 21-year-old Academy graduate who powered Manchester City to Carabao Cup glory with two second-half headers against Arsenal, insists the squad will use the triumph as a springboard for an assault on the two remaining trophies within reach.

O’Reilly’s brace in the space of four minutes settled a compelling final 2-0 and delivered City a record-extending ninth League Cup, the first silverware of the 2025-26 campaign. Speaking after collecting his man-of-the-match award, the midfielder said the dressing-room mood has already shifted to sustaining momentum once the international break ends.

“It’s a blow for them obviously and we need to build on it and get some momentum from this game,” O’Reilly said of the psychological edge gained over Arsenal. “As soon as the international break is over, we need to kick on and fight hard. We’ve got to play them at our place, and we are still in the FA Cup. Liverpool [in the quarter-final] is a tough tie; we know that so now we need to do everything we can to keep going.”

City’s victory at Wembley came at the expense of the Premier League pacesetters and followed a semi-final elimination of reigning holders Newcastle, underlining the competition’s significance to Guardiola’s evolving squad. O’Reilly, one of a cluster of homegrown talents to emerge over the past year, credited the club’s senior core for accelerating the development of the younger group.

“We’ve got some great leaders, players who have won a lot,” he noted. “So, they definitely help us young players who haven’t been in situations like this before in title races and won many trophies.”

With a league encounter against Arsenal looming and an FA Cup quarter-final date with Liverpool on the horizon, City’s season is poised for a dramatic conclusion. O’Reilly believes Sunday’s trophy has merely whetted the squad’s appetite: “To play at Wembley is always amazing and special and now we need to kick on.”