Bernardo Silva blends Manchester City past and present to raise one Pep Guardiola question | OneFootball

It might have been a scene from a training session over any of the seven seasons they were teammates. With a change of pace, Bernardo Silva darted past Ilkay Gundogan. This time, it was on the Etihad Stadium pitch. Manchester City captains past and present are two of Pep Guardiola’s favourite ever players, a pair with the technical skills and footballing intellect to appeal to a manager who is both purist and theorist.

“Gundo and Leroy [Sane] are like brothers because the memories we have together are truly special,” reflected Silva. But their return to the Etihad Stadium was for one night only, in the colours of a Galatasaray team who were beaten 2-0. Out of contract in the summer, Silva may soon join them in the ranks of the former City players. “I have an idea [of what will happen], but it's not a good time to speak about it,” said a man Guardiola had declared he wanted to stay forever. “When the time comes, me and the club will announce it and you will know.”

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(Getty Images)

For now, though, Silva is the bridge between past and future. He and Nathan Ake were the only City players over the age of 27 to take the field against Galatasaray. Seven of the 14 arrived in the last three transfer windows; had Antoine Semenyo and Marc Guehi been eligible, that number may have been higher.

“It's pretty clear that the club decided to go for the renovation of the squad, a squad that won a lot that needed maybe some new blood, in their opinion,” said Silva. A new-look side came eighth in the Champions League’s group phase and are second in the Premier League. Their skipper added: “What I feel is that this team has a lot of potential to be much, much better than what it is now, but we're definitely in a much better place than we were three months ago and we were six or nine months ago.”

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A new-look Manchester City are into the last 16 of the Champions League (Getty Images)

Change is not confined to new faces. Silva outlined how City’s expensive revamp has given them two types of teams. There have been suggestions they are less like a Guardiola side than before; indeed, they have had their lowest share of possession in the Premier League during the Catalan’s tenure. But there are the technical players and the physical players, those who can keep the ball and run with it or after it at speed.

And Silva and his old colleague Sane represent opposites among Guardiola wingers. The Portuguese is a midfielder by skillset. So was Andres Iniesta, who sometimes played off the left in his Barcelona team. When City won the treble in 2023, the wide men were Jack Grealish and Silva, neither a flying winger, but each a man who could, and did, keep the ball.

Semenyo, like Omar Marmoush and Jeremy Doku, is another type of wide man: faster, more suited to lightning counter-attacks. But more like Sane or Raheem Sterling; or, to back in Guardiola’s Bayern Munich days, Arjen Robben.

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Antoine Semenyo is the latest example of a different type of Pep Guardiola wideman (Getty Images)

“So if we have Jeremy, Semenyo, Omar, Erling [Haaland], all four of them on the pitch, you know that you're going to have a more direct, transitional game,” said Silva. If City have had less control at times this year, it has also been because Rodri has been missing. But they can pack the middle of the pitch. Sometimes this season, their nominal right winger has actually been stationed infield, whether he has been Rayan Cherki or Phil Foden.

“If you have Cherki, Foden, Tijjani [Reijnders], me, Nico [Gonzalez], Rodri, all on the pitch, you're going to have more possession,” Silva explained. “You're going to be less direct. I know Pep, and I know that his ideas don't change much. He knows what brought us success. He knows the way we have to play to win titles. I don't think it's going to change a lot in terms of that. But definitely with different players on the pitch, you play in a different way and you have to use the quality of your players. For example [against Galatasaray], with Erling and Omar, we definitely went more in behind and we tried to be a bit more direct.”

There is a wider question if Guardiola is a chameleon or a constant, a man who has changed according to trends elsewhere in the game or the pass master who has defined an era and whose preference is to return to the football he perfected at Barcelona and which took City to some of their greatest triumphs.

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Manchester City manager Pep Guardiola (PA Wire)

Silva was intrinsically involved in most of his successes at the Etihad. He arguably has a better understanding of any recent Guardiola player, with the possible exception of Gundogan. And he insisted: “The concepts of Pep Guardiola will never change.”