Guardiola might betray Manchester City promise as push for Silva-ware resumes after Arsenal digs | OneFootball

Perhaps the biggest indicator yet that Pep Guardiola will leave Manchester City this summer actually came in February 2018.

“He’ll stay a long time,” the Spaniard said then of Bernardo Silva. “While I’m here he will not move on, he will stay with me.”

The official confirmation has not yet arrived but the annual tradition of the Portugal international being linked with Barcelona and Paris Saint-Germain before ultimately committing his future to the Etihad has been usurped by reports of him having “100% decided” when his contract expires in June.

Silva has appeared in 43.5% of the 1,032 games Guardiola has overthought from the touchline, with no player ever winning more trophies under him.

Silva scoring (76) and assisting (77) an almost equal number of goals in this era of Manchester City dominance is a delightful touch from a player whose catalogue of them has been somewhat overtaken by his evolution into a hardened, tenacious, tireless dark arts lieutenant.

There are still traces of the gifted, elegant winger who thrived in Monaco in Silva’s intricate dribbling, but his has been a Guardiola positional change to rival that of Philipp Lahm, Joshua Kimmich, David Alaba and Fabian Delph.

That transformation was complete long before a foul-laden turn in the Carabao Cup final which helped underline some of Silva’s historic criticisms of Arsenal – a team which has not “always faced us face to face to try to win the games”, and instead just wants to ” play to the limits of what was possible to do and allowed by the referee”.

The “different rivalry” Manchester City have enjoyed with Liverpool instead will be renewed in the FA Cup quarter-final. And Silva embodied the difference between masters and apprentices against Arsenal at Wembley as a proven winner of trophies.

But the imminent exit of the most-used player in Guardiola’s entire professional coaching career might not signal the end of that career itself. In terms of time-honoured Manchester City customs, Silva’s yearly dalliance with departing is arguably second to the monthly practice of kicking the can containing Guardiola’s future down the road ever further.

“I spoke many times about that,” was how he handled the latest question over what his intentions were beyond the end of the season.

It was said initially that Guardiola would use this international break to make a decision; it was even declared that it would be ‘announced within days’.

Yet with that fortnight over, the Daily Telegraph’s exclusive line was that Guardiola would ‘wait until the end of the season’ to make a call. His ‘gentleman’s agreement’ allows him to ‘leave whenever he wants to’, but it remains likely that he simply honours a contract which runs until summer 2027.

That will grant him the opportunity to oversee the next stage in this team’s development, one he says “will be better” next season.

Another year, another leader needing to be replaced. Kyle Walker, Ilkay Gundogan, Ederson, Riyad Mahez, Aymeric Laporte, Raheem Sterling, Fernandinho and Scott Carson is a lot of experience to lose over just a few seasons. Silva might leave the biggest hole of all.

“I always joke and say that if Man City was located in the south of Europe I would stay here until they kick my ass out,” Silva said recently, noting that “culturally it’s not 100 per cent what I would ideally want in my life”.

But it undoubtedly became his spiritual home in a way no-one could possibly have imagined. With one trophy already secured to mark his farewell season, Manchester City’s final push for Silva-ware continues ahead of the biggest test of Guardiola’s integrity.