Why Bernardo Silva's Man City's departure is a sign of Guardiola's new Manchester City

Manchester City will say farewell to another one of their modern-day greats this summer after Bernardo Silva confirmed he will depart the club at the end of the season. 

"What we won and achieved together is a legacy that will forever be cherished in my heart," the Portuguese said upon the announcement across his Instagram page, and he leaves the club as one of City's top 10 all-time appearance makers. 
 

Having won 15 major honours since arriving at the club in 2017, Silva has the chance to finish on a high with the club still in contention to win the FA Cup and Premier League, and he'll no doubt go down as one of the Premier League's most consistent performers. 

Yet, his exit feels like the biggest indication yet that we're moving into Pep Guardiola's new Manchester City. 

Pep's lieutenant 

Guardiola has seen several massive departures during his time in charge of the club. Icons such as Vincent Kompany, Sergio Aguero and David Silva have all left during his tenure, but Bernardo's exit is the end of an era for his guy. 

Having signed the midfielder in his second season, Silva has been at the centre of everything the club has achieved at the club, and rarely let the manager down. 

Wherever Silva has been deployed, whether it's as a deep-lying playmaker, a box-to-box midfielder or as a creative number ten, he's never looked out of place - even when he's played as full-back, too. 

He's been a manager's dream and Guardiola's lieutenant on the pitch, throughout the centurion's team, the treble-winners and the current City set-up. 

@ManCityES

"He has been an incredible signing for us, incredible," his manager said of Silva earlier this month. 

"He is not the tallest one, the most muscular one, or score 50 goals or make 50 assists a season," 

"These are the type of players that are spotlighted and everyone talks about. For nine years, I know him quite well and for what a manager requires.

"All managers would say how much they love him because he is incredibly competitive, has a fire inside him always. In the toughest moments and on the biggest stages, he is always there." 

Now, however, for the first time, Guardiola will have to plan for life with the man he admits he's always had 'a weakness for'. 

The new normal 

In the nearly 10 years Guardiola has been in Manchester, he's overseen several evolutions of his City squad, yet at the hub has always been Silva, the constant. 

Even this year, he's started 27 of City's 32 league games, in a side that is slowly transitioning into a new cycle. 

That cycle has seen several names recruited by the club in the past three windows, yet there isn't an obvious name to fill the dedicated boots of their number 20.

It's another sign that this City team is moving into a new phase. We've already seen this season less of the high possession, intricate passing in favour of a quicker, directer style fuelled by the power and pace of Doku and Semenyo. 

Silva still had a place in that approach, but his absence may not be as keenly felt in this style going forward, as opposed to the previous incarnation, where his footprint was all over it. 

His departure feels like a seminal moment in City history, almost the end of bridging the gap between the old and the new, both from an on-pitch perspective and what the player represents. 

Search for Silva 

The question will be who or how the club will replace him in the summer.

City have already been heavily linked with a move for Elliott Anderson, and his profile does seem to fit that of someone who has some similarities to Silva, but also offers somewhat of the more direct approach that Guardiola has adopted. 

Sando Tonalii is another name in the mix, who would offer a different flavour to the midfield, but much will depend on whether Rodri stays at the club and what the future has in store for Tijjani Reijnders or Nico Gonzalez in that position, or will Nico O'Reilly be earmarked for that role? 

Either way, Silva's exit leaves a massive hole in City's squad for next season, after a massively successful spell at The Etihad, and it marks the end of an era in more ways for both player and Guardiola's club. 

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