“Wow!” – Jacob Wright selects three Manchester City midfielders for high praise | OneFootball

Former Manchester City Academy starlet and now Norwich City senior professional Jacob Wright has shone a light on the first-team squad at the Etihad Stadium and his experiences of working in the Pep Guardiola environment.

After several years progressing through the City Football Academy, Wright sealed a permanent move to Championship side Norwich City earlier this summer off the back of a successful loan spell at Carrow Road, marking the beginning of a new chapter in a promising career.

But despite making the leap away from the Etihad Stadium, the 19-year-old remains deeply appreciative of the elite-level grounding he received under Pep Guardiola’s first-team coaching staff.

Speaking in an exclusive podcast interview with TalkNorwichCity, the former Manchester City midfielder and academy graduate offered a fascinating insight into what it was like to work under Pep Guardiola and in the Etihad first-team.

“He was a magnificent manager when I worked under him, he still is, evidently so,” Wright insisted. “What he teaches players, the tiny little details that go into everything that he does are just like, WOW! How do you even notice that?!”

He continued, “Tactically he’s a genius, the way he sets up teams and different ways of playing and constantly thinking of the next thing to combat when people adapt to how he plays, he’s got another one up his sleeve to change the way to beat opponents.”

On the first-team squad, Wright pinpointed three players in particular for high praise as he explained, “Obviously there’s not a bad player there, so you’re constantly learning when you’re around them. Rodri, just seeing how smooth his basics are, every little thing that he does is just crisp, all the time.

“You’ve even got like Bernardo Silva and Mateo Kovacic who are just press resistant, you can’t get near them, they just know how to maneuver the ball and their body to get away from you at all times.

“The learning that I got from training with them for a season, two seasons, was second to none.”

Jacob Wright’s admiration for Rodri, among others, comes as little surprise given the Spaniard’s status as one of Pep Guardiola’s most trusted lieutenants in midfield, with the 29-year-old seen as a coach on the pitch by many and continues to be an ever-present for City.

Bernardo Silva’s consistency and versatility also regularly attract praise, while Mateo Kovacic’s poise in tight spaces was a major factor behind his arrival from Chelsea ahead of the Premier League title-winning campaign of 2023/24.

Looking ahead, Wright will be hoping that the tools picked up during his time at Manchester City can translate into a successful senior career at Norwich, who no doubt have ambitions of pushing for Premier League promotion this season.

His glowing review of the environment at Manchester City also adds to the growing number of young players crediting Pep Guardiola’s influence even before breaking through fully at first-team level.

With City continuing to invest in young midfielders – including Claudio Echeverri and Sverre Nypan most recently – Jacob Wright’s comments are another reminder of the world-class standards that Academy graduates must match if they are to earn their place at the club.