Rico Lewis is one of the senior members of the Manchester City squad on tour this summer – but he’s still finding his feet in Pep Guardiola’s side and is calm over his prospects of playing time. He spoke to UK reporters from the City pre-season camp in Raleigh, North Carolina.
The previous season was more challenging as he contributed significantly to Manchester City’s treble-winning campaign in his rookie campaign. In the Premier League, he made just 16 appearances, starting eight of them at different positions.
He must now demonstrate to Guardiola his abilities once more this summer after slipping in the standings during his second season. At least from the outside, there have been suggestions that Lewis should leave City in order to play regular football.
However, he won’t be changing his strategy significantly and certainly no thoughts to a transfer. Lewis has got this far being himself and trusting his own ability. He’s not in the mood for stopping now.
“I must honestly keep doing what I’m doing. The most important thing is to wait for opportunities with patience. Even if they might not appear frequently, you must take them when they do. The manager will play you if he sees that you are contributing to the team and are performing well.
“I have to play as well as do what I can as I can. I don’t need to do anything amazing or special. Just stick to the basics I’ve always done and make sure I’m fit for every game.”
Lewis has a decision to make this summer over what kind of player he wants to be, but in truth he has already made up his mind. Breaking into the team as a right-back, inverting into midfield, he got a handful of games last term as a more traditional midfielder.
“In my head I want to be more of a number eight,” he says, which tracks with similar comments during the season. Even his time out of the team – and the significant competition in midfield – has not changed his opinion.
“I want to be a bit more attacking. I enjoyed doing both sides, going forward and starting off a bit higher. I think in that team you can take so much from every position.”
Lewis is one of the most senior players on tour this summer, with the majority of first-teamers still on holiday after the Euros. He jokes that it’s up to him to integrate the academy players and the handful of big names, having spent more time with the youngsters on tour over the years than the likes of Jack Grealish and Erling Haaland.
He has played with Nico O’Reilly and Jadel Katongo since he was six years old, so the concept of academy players looking up to him – when some are older than him and others are his close friends – is a strange one he hasn’t quite got his head around. But ask any youngster in the youth team, and Lewis’ path is one they all want to emulate.
The teenager’s advice to them is the same as he’s following himself: don’t do anything special.
“The only thing they need to do, is like I said about me, don’t do anything special, do what you do best,” he explains. “If that’s scoring a goal, it’s scoring a goal. If it’s keeping the ball out, it’s keeping the ball out. It’s the only thing as a young player, you want to impress so much that you might then make mistakes.”
Lewis says he cannot watch football for fun these days – there is too much tactical information swirling around his head for him to enjoy it. He avoided the early stages of Euros over the summer while on holiday, despite making his senior England debut last season, and spurned the chance to go out and watch the final at a fan zone in Manchester with friends.
Probably for the best, given he is a full international and a two-time Premier League winner. Plus, he jokes that he didn’t fancy getting covered in beer when friend Cole Palmer netted an equaliser in Berlin.
These are the things he must think about having been catapulted into elite football in his formative teenage years. Instead, he stayed at home, on his own, dogsitting his two dogs.
“I’d always watch it from a tactical point of view, where you see little things,” he says. “If you go out and watch you just [pay attention to] if your team score or concede but if you watch from a tactical perspective, it’s not the same. When youre getting all this information from the manager and older players it makes you think about everything differently.
“Tactically I know so much more over the last two years. Obviously I don’t know everything but I know so much more about myself in different positions. And also teammates in different positions, knowing subconsciously that if I’m here, he’s going to be there and what the whole team is going to be doing in a certain situation.
“It’s coming more naturally. You’ve got one of the best managers constantly feeding information and it’ll be on the minor details. Those little ones add up and become so much. It’s hard not to progress.”
For all the talk of Lewis struggling for games last year, he’s quick to remind people that he passed 50 appearances for City and has an impressive collection of medals to his name – “When you take a step back and look at it like that it’s amazing to even be part of the team.”
As he says, he has plenty of time – and the future could be bright (blue) for City’s midfield.
“I spoke to Phil [Foden] about this before,” he says. “Phil was talking about how great it will be when we’re all the elder members of the group in five or six years. And Oscar [Bobb]. And after that, the players who also arrive. Although we’re excited about it, we don’t want to get that old just yet.”
In support of his remarks that he would play as a number eight permanently, Lewis has four or five games this summer to move ahead of the opposition in midfield before the big guns return.
To obtain the games he desires in the middle of the park, though, he is prepared to wait. Furthermore, he won’t take any particular action to try to press the matter.
