Oscar Bobb and the season that never was, which leaves more questions than answers | OneFootball

With the news that Oscar Bobb has finally returned to training, it feels like a good time to reflect on the Season That Never Was. I love Oscar Bobb. Truly. He’s a remarkably gifted footballer. One blessed with majestic footwork and a change of pace so electric that it could power the Etihad Stadium. He’s a joy to watch. But when it looked like he was just about to set fire, sadly, we were robbed of a season that could have been special due to a season-ending injury. Or an injury that basically took away his 24/25 season.

This is football, of course, but it feels particularly galling given the narrative of the season and as we look ahead to The Big Rebuild in the summer. Much has been made of City’s potential midfield targets – Morgan Gibbs-White could demand a huge fee. Whereas Florian Wirtz attracts considerable attention for obvious reasons. There will be others, too. But I can’t help but wonder how different these conversations would be if we hadn’t been robbed of Oscar Bobb’s potential breakout campaign.

Oscar Bobb looked set for a breakout season before injury struck.

It really could have been that too. It started with so much promise in the preseason games. This led to an excellent performance at Wembley in the FA Community Shield game against Manchester United. He looked set for superstardom. Until, sadly, his season was all but ended. I don’t think it’s an exaggeration, however, to say that if he had stayed fit, then we could have seen the young attacker excel in a City side that was so often found lacking a spark.

Oscar Bobb’s greatest strength is his vision and understanding of the game. You’d be tempted to point towards his absurd change of pace or wonderfully nimble feet. But it’s his brain that sets him apart. He could find space in a phone box. In a game now dictated by lung capacity, organisation and risk aversion, that attribute is priceless. To put it simply: Pep’s sides need players like him. The kind of player that can drift away from his marker, pick up the ball, pivot in a flash and time and time again make the correct decision within a second. They make the system work.

If Bobb stayed fit, perhaps this summer window could look different.

I’ll never be able to prove it, but my gut tells me that if we’d had a whole season of Oscar Bobb, the summer transfer discourse would be remarkably different. What’s to say we’d not be sat here in awe of a 10-goal, 10-assist ‘debut’ season? One not just playing out wide, but all across the front line as a winger, be it on the left or right, or as an attacker operating through the middle in the classic false 9 or 10 role. He’s that good and, trust me on this, time will prove it.

In this scenario, blessed with a fully fit Oscar Bobb 24/25 campaign, is it wild to suggest that suddenly the almost desperate (understandable given the future departure of KDB) narrative that surrounds the likes of Florian Wirtz would be vastly different? I don’t think it is. It might just be that the answer to the De Bruyne conundrum is staring us in the face already. Yes, Oscar Bobb is not Kevin De Bruyne, no one is – but he’s an exceptionally unique footballer. I think we might not have realised that the answer to one of the biggest questions City have could already be right under our noses. Here’s to 25/26, Oscar.