5 things we learned | How Oscar Bobb Came Back | OneFootball

Our new documentary ‘How Oscar Bobb Came Back’ is out now on CITY+.

It tells the story of Bobb’s battle back from serious injury alongside our skilled medical team and features interviews with the likes of Bernardo Silva, Kevin De Bruyne and Matheus Nunes.

Having seen it ahead of its launch this morning, we’ve picked out five talking points.

Highly respected

It’s fair to say Oscar Bobb, despite his tender years, is a player who is greatly admired by his teammates and someone they think has a very bright future in the game.

That strength of feeling comes across loud and clear in this must-see documentary charting the winger’s battle back from a long-term injury.

Matheus Nunes tells us: “When I arrived he was one of the players that impressed me a lot in training. The talent he has is off the charts.”

Former Norwegian star Jan Age Fjortoft, who has closely followed Bobb’s career, continued: “The profile of Oscar Bobb, we knew about him about early. He was a small kid who could do anything with the ball.”

Kevin De Bruyne added: “I could see he had something different.”

But as well as expecting him to thrive, you also want him to thrive judging by the humble and respectful personality he clearly has in and around the dressing room.

There are some players in football that you’re desperate to see go on and excel.

Bobb very much comes into this category when you hear the superlative soundbites from his colleagues.

Fellow Academy graduate James McAtee tells us: “He’s such a nice person. He’s a lovely person to be around.”

Captain Bernardo Silva, a setter of very high standards, sums it up perfectly: “I am a big fan of Oscar Bobb.”

Mutual respect

Players experience big moments in their career that catapult them to another level.

For Bobb, it was Newcastle away in our Four-in-a-Row campaign.

Bagging the last-gasp winner at St James’s Park, Bobb received the plaudits of players and staff on the final whistle, with manager Pep Guardiola extra animated following the remarkable 3-2 comeback triumph.

Bobb, a softly-spoken quiet man, was asked to address the group after the game as he made his way into the dressing room to the chants of ‘Oscar Bobb, Bobb, Bobb’.

He paid tribute to the ball through to him by Kevin De Bruyne, who himself was returning from his own injury layoff.

Despite the fulsome praise, KDB insisted in this documentary that the goal was much better than the pass.

“For me, it was a pass but for Oscar it was the movement, the control, the action, the shot together. He had to do more difficult things that I had to do. I just had to give him the ball.”

Change maker

In the documentary, Bernardo Silva takes time to reflect on the 2024/25 campaign which saw us fall short of our usual high standards.

Despite a fine finale to the season which saw us finish third in the Premier League and thus qualify for the Champions League, the Blues didn’t take the top-flight title, something we’d grown accustomed to having managed it four seasons in succession from 2020/21 to 2023/24.

The silky-smooth midfielder, one of our captaincy group this season, believes Bobb – had he stayed fit – would have made a big difference in how the campaign played out.

The 21-year-old, safe to say, was flying in pre-season and was the star of our USA Tour before setting up Bernardo for the equaliser in our ultimately successful Community Shield clash with Manchester United.

Then came the injury and our Portuguese ace thinks that had a profound effect on the term just gone.

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“In pre-season, he arrived and you could see he was ready to be one of the main players,” he said.

“I think Oscar would have made a big difference because of the impact he was having in pre-season and the energy he was giving was very special.”

High praise indeed.

Mature beyond his years

Despite only being 21 years old, Oscar Bobb’s maturity was highlighted in this riveting documentary.

Knowing you’re going to miss the thing you love the most with no definitive timeline of when you might be back must be both heart breaking and soul destroying.

But Nick Oakley, first team physiotherapist, paid a fulsome tribute to the winger for his optimistic approach in getting back to full fitness.

“You can see how driven he is from the moment he comes in asking what his plan is for the day,” said Nick.

“Never mind getting back from an injury, just from a day-to-day basis, he’s driven to say: ‘I want to succeed today, what do I need to do, tell me what I need to do and I will do it’.

“What stood out for me with Oscar was people were saying it was a bad time for the injury and he must be gutted and he was genuinely gutted but it was the level of maturity with which he took the injury.”

Welcome back

It was wonderful to be able to see the moment Oscar Bobb came back into training with the first team.

Footage appears in the documentary of that initial return session from the first week of January 2025.

What terrific team spirit is on show as Pep Guardiola makes a point of welcoming the winger back into the fold on the CFA fields.

It was somewhat apt that the player who helped catapult him to another level at Newcastle, Kevin De Bruyne, was also in the spotlight on that day.

KDB received a signed shirt featuring ‘400’ on the back after making his 400th City appearance in the 4-1 win over West Ham the previous weekend.

The Belgian became the 15th man to reach that notable figure in our long and illustrious history.

He's now departed for pastures new after 10 glorious campaigns but Bobb is back and ready for the new season with high hopes and excited expectations.