Bernardo Silva: Still Manchester City's glue, brains and heartbeat

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Pep Guardiola and his players, however, have no such struggles. They understand the importance of their captain to what Manchester City do on the football pitch. The secret is in its subtlety. Saturday’s 4-0 demolition of Liverpool was another example of that. The Portuguese midfielder did not produce a signature moment and others dominated the highlights: Erling Haaland’s hat-trick, Antoine Semenyo’s goal and assist, Rayan Cherki’s gloating. Yet, as Michael Oliver blew for full time to send Manchester City to their eighth consecutive FA Cup semi-final, Bernardo Silva was the only one of the starting front six left on the pitch. Haaland, Cherki, Semenyo, Jeremy Doku and Rodri were taken off for rest. Omar Marmoush, Savinho, Phil Foden, Tijjani Reijnders and Nico Gonzalez were all given a chance but the one ingredient the formula could not survive without? Bernardo Silva. The glue. The brains. The heartbeat. The man with the most miles in his legs, aged 31 and making his 450th appearance for the club — 69 more than the next most-used player in Guardiola’s managerial career, Kevin De Bruyne. City were without Guardiola’s touchline presence, sitting in the posh seats with his daughter as he served a touchline ban, but Silva made sure they did not lack direction. He orchestrated build-up play in his own box, manoeuvred his team-mates by hand, won back possession and threaded a simple pass to start the counter-attack. His example guided his team through a difficult first half. Every ounce of the resilience and mental fortitude Arne Slot’s men lacked, Bernardo Silva embodied. Even as Haaland prepared to take his penalty at 0-0, Silva was rearranging Nico O’Reilly’s position at the edge of the box. He was tweaking Marc Guehi and Matheus Nunes’ positions, inch by inch, to ensure the correct defensive coverage. Just in case. It epitomises his mindset. He is the team’s handbrake, pausing the game and rejecting the fans’ excitement to always take the ambitious choice. The ultimate players’ player, it is in the quiet moments, when the camera is panned elsewhere, that you truly appreciate his importance. When Liverpool are breaking forward in the first half and he sprints back 40 yards to fill in at centre-back. When he darts to left-back to offer Guehi an escape route under pressure. When he trots down the right wing with the ball to wait on others to get up and pin the opposition back. Some see this version of him as containment, a player without his old spring and who pants a little more during recovery runs. That may be accurate, but he is still as ubiquitous a presence as ever. He views individual sacrifice as a virtue, the legwork necessary to make a team win. To make them great. It is the reason Guardiola has spent the entire season rejigging the balance of his team, benching Reijnders, Cherki and Foden for prolonged spells, but always retaining Bernardo Silva. In the early months, he had to play on the right flank to provide the stability needed for Foden to play centrally. At other points, he had to drop deeper in possession to support Nico Gonzalez as he grew into Rodri’s shoes. No matter what version of him he deploys, Guardiola believes his team is stronger for it. “He’s my weakness. My favourite one,” he said in December, after victory over West Ham. “He knows exactly what we need to play better, (more) fluid. Having a special sense of competing.” Pep Lijnders, standing in for his boss on Saturday, faced Bernardo Silva for seven years as assistant to Jurgen Klopp at Liverpool. “I didn’t like him before. Now I love him,” laughed Lijnders. “The way he feels the game, what’s needed. There’s not many like him; when to drop, when to make a move 20 metres away from Rodri. “You see today, the moment we move the ball to the outside and they start following the man. Bernardo Silva or Rodri were always free to commit in the middle. He feels that. There is nobody else (like that). “He feels the task to play well, to make the team play well. These are the type of players, when they are not playing, you will feel it. He was so, so good.” City’s assistant manager also referenced Bernardo Silva’s desire to “own it”. By that, he meant setting standards in training and leading the evolution of the squad after the loss of 1,764 games’ worth of experience in the last year while integrating 12 new players. This is a City team that has found its groove and regained an air of arrogance again. The League Cup triumph over Arsenal last month may have been the first trophy at the club for more than half of the squad but it was a return to normal service for Bernardo Silva and Rodri. The latter still needs managing after his injury but it feels like Bernardo Silva is viewed as indispensable. It is why he has played over 3,100 minutes, the fifth-most behind Haaland, O’Reilly, Gianluigi Donnarumma and Nunes. His contract is expiring in the summer and, if this is to be his final six weeks, he will be the third successive captain to leave City while still wearing the armband. Unlike Kyle Walker and De Bruyne last season, however, he will hope to end it with another trophy — or two — safe in the knowledge that he has helped to nurture the next winning team. Maybe then, even those who do not hear the gun go off will recognise how the Premier League’s arch-shapeshifter has influenced this era of dominance. Spot the pattern. Connect the terms Find the hidden link between sports terms Jordan Campbell is a football writer for The Athletic, who regularly covers Manchester City. In 2024, he was named in the 30 to Watch journalism awards. He previously covered Glasgow Rangers and was twice nominated for Young Journalist of the Year at the Scottish Press Awards. Follow Jordan on Twitter @JordanC1107