Shea Charles says earning first-team minutes for Manchester City is his “main target” after a stellar performance for Northern Ireland in their 2-0 Euro 2024 qualifier win over San Marino on Thursday.
Charles played the full 90 minutes on his third international appearance and was a standout performer. The 19-year-old is yet to make his senior City debut, having made the first-team matchday squad for the first time in the 1-1 Champions League draw away at RB Leipzig last month.
The midfielder has played 20 games in Premier League 2 this season, grabbing an assist in City’s 6-0 win over Arsenal. Charles, who has trained with the senior squad this season, says he is seeing out the season at City before assessing his next steps albeit longs for his Blues debut.
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“At the moment I’m just going to see out the season and we’ll see what happens,” the teenager said. “Hopefully, I’d love to stay at City. That’s obviously the main target, but you never know, so we’ll see.
“It will be difficult (to get into the side), but I’m confident in my own abilities. Training with them, learning from them all the time, it’s just a great experience.”
Speaking about Northern Ireland's win away at San Marino, Charles added: “I really enjoyed it out there. It’s always good to get a good result, especially away from home. I just hope that we can go on on Sunday (against Finland) and get another good result.
“It was good to see that we could score one of our early chances. It’s kind of expected when you come away from home that some teams will sit back and make it difficult for you to score. Michael [O’Neill, manager] said that before the game and said, ‘Just relax, your time will come’.”
Speaking after full-time, O’Neill hailed Charles for his shift, saying: “Shea was magnificent, I thought. He broke the play up, he rarely wasted a pass.
“We put him in the middle of the back three for the last 15 minutes and he wasn't fazed by that. His temperament for the game is as good as I've seen in a young player, to be honest.”
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