Pep Guardiola has poured praise on Bernardo Silva after his match-winning Community Shield performance.
Silva was the best player on the Wembley pitch on Sunday as Manchester City started their campaign with a 2-0 win over Chelsea.
The Portuguese endured a difficult season after signing for City in summer 2017, but Guardiola stated he was the one player he would never sell as manager at the Etihad Stadium.
Silva repaid the faith on Sunday, and Guardiola was hugely complimentary of his “masterpiece”.
“The performance of Bernardo Silva was a masterpiece,” Guardiola said.
“Everybody knows the wingers want to compete. Right now, it is Bernardo and 10 players more. Right now. But in 11 months it depends on what they show me on the pitch.Bernardo is far away from other guys, so that’s why, at the moment, he plays.
“He is so intelligent, he is clever. He is a fighter, a competitor. I think he is the guy most beloved in our team and today he showed me a lot of things.
“He came back earlier and that showed me again a lot of things and that’s one of the reasons we won today. It was for many reasons. One of the reasons was Bernardo.”
Bernardo Silva is class. He was everywhere against Liverpool and Bayern Munich in pre-season friendlies and ran the show at Wembley.
The runs, the touches taking it past players with ease, the effortless lay-offs – there was everything you could want from a star performance.
The man nicknamed Bubblegum looks a revelation playing inside and could give Kevin De Bruyne a run for his money as City’s most influential player this season if he keeps up this form. David Silva will still be needed of course, but he may not be as badly missed when rested as he could have been.
Chelsea could not lay a finger on Silva all afternoon, he was always too aware, too sharp, too clever, too incisive. He directed City’s play with and without the ball, made City’s second and ensuring that every last detail of Guardiola’s plans were executed on the pitch.
Throughout, Silva looked like a player who was flourishing in the trust and responsibility that Guardiola had given him. Because last season it felt as if City did not quite get the very best from the clever little midfielder from Lisbon.
The nature of modern football is that the biggest teams have far more money and far more top players than anyone else. That is how Manchester City have ended up with three of the best creative midfielders in the country. David Silva and Kevin De Bruyne are on another level from every other midfielder in the country. But the next best, if it is not Christian Eriksen, might just be Bernardo Silva.
So last season, after making his £43m transfer to City from Monaco, Silva had to find his way into the English game. He had to learn that not every time he was get he would get the free-kick. He had to learn that the ball was in play for longer, more like 80 minutes each game, rather than 60 minutes, as he observed himself. And with David Silva and De Bruyne occupying those two attacking midfield positions in City’s 4-3-3, there was no obvious role for him in the team.
Bernardo Silva started 28 competitive games last year but rather than in midfield he played most often on the right of the front three. He is good there but never quite has the acceleration to beat his left-back on the outside, forcing him back towards the crowded midfield area. But it never felt like he could control the game as he would want to.
That changed today. David Silva is still not fully fit yet and De Bruyne not ready yet, just three weeks on from playing for Belgium against England in the World Cup third placed play-off game in St Petersburg.