Bernardo Silva: Man City’s hustling locomotive – and unexpected leading man

Bernardo Silva was a mostly unused decoration during the months of heaviest lifting when Manchester City were laying the foundations for their record championship triumph. In defense of it the diminutive Portuguese has become indispensable. And not, perhaps, in a way envisaged.

Silva’s £43m purchase from Monaco in the summer of 2017 was part of the succession plan intended to fill the chasm eventually left by namesake David. Injury to Kevin De Bruyne, the generalissimo driving City’s 100-point construct last term, has forced Silva to understudy the “wrong” leading man.

At 5ft 8in, he is hardly built to bulldoze, yet in his own indefatigable way he offered a version of that to disrupt and get in the faces of Liverpool in a match that revealed football at its most visceral. As one Daily Telegraph correspondent put it, he was part ballerina, part battering ram. Thus, the morning after the night before, it was his hustling locomotion that sprung most to mind, collecting the ball on the edge of the box at one end and providing the cross for City’s opener, and harrying Virgil van Dijk at the other end, moments before Leroy Sané hit the winner.

The 8.5 miles (or 13.7km) he ran in the match was the most by any Premier League player this season. That’s 10kph pace, a tidy time for a club runner. Except this fella was doing it while nursing a ball through flying feet or chasing like mad to regain it in a match that would effectively decide City’s season. Pep Guardiola has been witness to much in his career as a player and a coach, but never anything like this, he said.

‘Bernardo is incredible’

“Bernardo did everything. He won all the duels. He is the smallest one. He shows that to play football, you have to be good. Of course, I would prefer to have a taller team or more physical, but Bernardo is incredible. It’s a long time since I’ve seen a performance like he did. He is precise, he is clean, he is clever.”

Silva started and finished only two games before February last season, at home to Burnley and away to Swansea – hardly peak demand. Against the top six he managed a combined 43 minutes in that period. With De Bruyne delivering one brilliant turn after another and Silva D conducting the whole, Silva B could do little but wait. As the praise collects about his feet in the aftermath of City’s momentous victory, Silva is an example to every young player of the importance of being ready and of maintaining belief.

City were faced by a considerable rival, one that held a seven-point advantage and, after a shaky opening five minutes, began to assert something akin to superiority.

With Liverpool shutting down the sky blue carousel, and at the Etihad to boot, City were suddenly in a different and utterly unfamiliar kind of fight. This was about will as much as skill. City, so used to having it their own way against teams in retreat, suddenly had to fight like dogs to gain as much as a sniff of the ball.

The size of the fight

We have Mark Twain to thank for the pithy aphorism that summed up Silva’s Thursday night: “It’s not the size of the dog in the fight, it’s the size of the fight in the dog.” And this one has not a hint of conceit.

“I think it was very good game,” Silva said. “Both teams were very intense, wanted to try to play football and win the game. Happily, we won it. Everyone has to be very happy with the three points and the performance. We had to work a lot”

Just like that. There is no let up. After Liverpool, City have six other matches in January, including the FA Cup tie against Rotherham and Burton in the Carabao Cup on Wednesday before they resume the pursuit of Liverpool at home to Wolves a week on Monday. As Silva points out, should City repeat the horrors of Christmas, the win over Liverpool will lose all value.

“Obviously, when you win against the team that is top of the league it means a lot. For the confidence it is always good to beat them, but it is just a game. If we lose the next one this doesn’t mean anything. On to the next one and try to keep playing the same way as we have the last two games and try to not let happen what happened to us a few weeks back.”