Former Manchester City defender Nedum Onuoha has praised new signing Rayan Cherki for his exceptional display against Al Ain, just two weeks after joining the Premier League champions from Olympique Lyonnais.
Cherki, who netted a brilliant goal in the Club World Cup fixture on Sunday, has already made a lasting impression on those familiar with the club.
Both Onuoha and Cherki have African roots—Onuoha is of Nigerian descent, while the 21-year-old French international Cherki has Algerian heritage.
Reflecting on Cherki’s performance, Onuoha told the club’s official media: “The skill is there, the understanding is there, the quality is there.
“As I was watching, I was thinking back to when I was playing… something would happen and I don’t know how it’s happened.”
He continued by highlighting Cherki’s decision-making and creativity: “Even for Cherki’s goal, that ‘over’ to let it go for (Erling) Haaland. No one’s seen him do an ‘over’ yet so why was that the right time to do it?”
Onuoha concluded, “This level of quality in my opinion, when it gets like this, creative and in flow, it’s the type of stuff that you see in training—and when they bring that onto game day, it’s top.”
Cherki’s debut goal and growing chemistry with Haaland will be a welcome sign for Pep Guardiola’s side as they look to dominate both domestically and in the Club World Cup campaign.
