Oscar Bobb returns to the Etihad with Fulham on Wednesday night just days after leaving Manchester City in a £27million exit.
Oscar Bobb lit up the Wembley turf with a breakout showing that seemed to cement his status as a Manchester City first team fixture. Days later, a fractured leg sustained in training ended his season.
It’s a sliding doors moment football often throws up and on this occasion Bobb was on the wrong side of it. The Community Shield victory over Manchester United in August 2024 saw Bobb named player of the match and continued a fine few months for the Norwegian.
He’d hit a stunning late winner off the bench at Newcastle in the January which went a long way to helping City to the title, before playing a starring role on the summer tour of America.
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That earned him a start at Wembley and, but for injury, he may well have started the Premier League opener at Chelsea. Instead he was on the treatment table and staring at the long road to recovery.
He returned to first team action in April 2025 but Bobb has failed to hit the same heights since and despite 15 appearances for City this term, an exit to Fulham was sanctioned. He returns to the Etihad with his new club tonight.
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Pep Guardiola was looking for Bobb to kick on and, through injury, form and the arrivals of the likes of Omar Marmoush, Rayan Cherki and Antoine Semenyo in the last three transfer windows, the Norway international hasn’t managed to force his way into the City thinking.
“We want more,” said Guardiola after that 2024 Community Shield showing. “Sometimes he had the chance to take the ball and go and he was a little bit passive. He has something unique; be stopped then go, first one or two steps, right or left are unbelievable. The goal, how he turns and make the cross, huge quality. He has incredible values and work ethic. He has the ability to do it and he can do it more regularly.”
The regularity never arrived. Bobb worked hard to return from that serious injury but this season he never quite looked like he had the trust of his manager.
Norway boss Stale Solbakken criticised the winger after a friendly with New Zealand: “He was very poor in the first half. He is lacking everything. If you ask Oscar, I think he’ll say that the first half was his weakest performance for the national team. The second half was the next weakest.”
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His confidence hit, Bobb then struggled to recapture it at City and never found a run of minutes. He was handed a start in the Carabao Cup quarter-final win over Brentford which was prematurely ended inside the opening quarter through injury. From then on, with talk of his future intensifying, the writing seemed to be on the wall.
Guardiola spoke in Bodo of Bobb saying he was still injured so wouldn’t be involved in what felt a pointed answer. The City manager has cited preparation as being the main injury avoidance factor in the past and there seemed some internal frustration at Bobb’s latest issue.
But he left with a glowing piece on City’s website and with the club thinking enough of him to insert a clause into his Fulham switch that allows the Blues to match any bid that comes in for him, a clause they utilised to sign James Trafford in the summer.
Plenty will watch Bobb’s time at Fulham with interest, even if his bright City beginning ultimately fizzled into something of a sour exit.
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