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Bernardo Silva is in no doubt about how much his game has changed during his time at Manchester City.

“Oh a lot,” says the 28-year-old, a key part of Portugal’s World Cup squad. “It’s just the way that I understand the game much better.”

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He has had a fine understanding of the game since his early days in the Benfica academy, as the club’s youth technical director Rodrigo Magalhaes can attest. “I remember some situations with Bernardo when he was an under-12. We started to explain an exercise and Bernardo gave us three or four new solutions. The coach thought the players would spend five or six minutes and then he would have to explain, but Bernardo got it in 10 seconds.”

Since moving to Manchester in 2017 that understanding has developed considerably, and he is somebody who would be an unquestioned starter in City’s biggest games — although you could never be sure exactly where.

“I’ve started as a right winger, I’ve played as false 9, I’ve played as 10, 8, sometimes even 6,” Bernardo says. “So when I play right winger I know where I want my midfielder to be, I know where I want my 6 to be to help me. It’s just in the way that I understand the game I think I’ve changed quite a lot.

“So, for example, I know what to do to make my right winger feel more comfortable in the pressing, in the build-up to give him more space to attack. Playing in different positions gives me this understanding to know what my team-mates want from me for them to be better.”

He arrived from Monaco with a highlights reel that suggested a fleet-footed, very direct attacking midfielder and winger, and in his first season under Pep Guardiola he was predominantly used on the right flank.

There was a time when he was not used in the midfield three unless it was in place of Kevin De Bruyne, City’s most direct midfielder. Bernardo very rarely partnered the Belgian if David Silva was unavailable, because Guardiola felt Bernardo and De Bruyne were too similar.

Ilkay Gundogan would be the man to fill in for David Silva as he had a better appreciation of the ‘pausa’ that Guardiola wants — the individual ability to manipulate the speed of the game by playing short, patient passes, and the overall understanding of how to then speed it up by picking the more direct option at the right time.

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That’s a thing of the past now and while Bernardo still pops up on the right wing every now and again, he is certainly somebody capable of running a game from central areas. That fleet-footedness helps him draw players in and carry the ball past them, a useful trick when trying to create space for others.

And it’s that sort of job that he himself has come to prefer.

“Honestly, I think my best position is next to the holding midfielder,” he says. “Not No 6, not No 10, No 8.

“I played 12 years at Benfica, from seven until I was 19, and I’ve always been a midfielder but more like a 10, then when I moved to Monaco we played in a 4-4-2 and I was on the right side so I wasn’t 100 per cent a winger but I wasn’t 100 per cent a midfielder, I was a bit in the middle.

“When I signed for Man City, I didn’t know where exactly he wanted me to play. I played in midfield, then for two years I played on the wing, then started playing in the middle getting deeper and deeper, getting close to Fernandinho and now Rodri, and that’s where I feel more comfortable, it’s where I feel I can help the team the most. But, of course, I am always available to play false 9, left, right, whatever the manager thinks is best for the team, but No 8 is the position where I feel the most comfortable.”

It could even be seen as a Wayne Rooneyfication of Bernardo, in the sense that Rooney was a marauding, dribbling, attacking menace in his early days before being turned into a more complete and integral team player during his years at Old Trafford, something which did not always sit right with those who preferred the more electric threat.

There are those who prefer the ‘old’ Bernardo, if it can be called that, but he points out that he has always been somebody who likes to get stuck in, even when playing further up the pitch — now he’s just in a role where it might be even more useful.

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“Because I was small and quick people would just think I was this kind of playmaker but I have always been a player who tries to be intuitive in terms of recovering second balls, helping the team in these situations, in the pressing and in terms of that I think I didn’t change that much.

“My job honestly is to make my team-mates better because I know that with the players we have up front… if the defenders and midfielders control the game, with the players that we’ve got up front, with Kevin, with Erling (Haaland), with Jack (Grealish), with Riyad (Mahrez), the chances of winning the game are very big, so if we do our job properly and make them comfortable and give them balls to run and chances to score, we are going to win those games.”

And that brings us to the nub of Guardiola’s entire approach at City. If there are people who would prefer Bernardo to be let off the leash as a winger again, there are certainly those who want to see this great City side take the handbrake off and wreak havoc using Phil Foden, De Bruyne, Grealish and Haaland, to name just a few.

Earlier this year, when City beat Chelsea 1-0 at the Etihad Stadium, Guardiola talked about his side’s attempts to counter-attack in the final minutes once the Londoners left spaces in the defence, and the home crowd were roaring them on for more goals.

His assessment is probably the most succinct description of how he wants his team to play.

“Chelsea made a step up and that helped us make transitions, and our fans are so satisfied to see it, but if you don’t finish that action they (Chelsea) can make the transition and they are unstoppable, like Liverpool,” he said.

“There were (opportunities) to do it, they were so clear, but in that moment you have to bring the ball to their half and make twenty-thousand-million passes, that’s the only way.”

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In short, not to take the crowd-pleasing, more thrilling option, but to slow the game down and keep possession.

It is an approach that does not sit right with every City fan, no matter how many trophies it has helped to deliver, but it is important to understand it is not going to go away; when City drew 3-3 in a thrilling game at Newcastle United in August, Guardiola highlighted the need for players like Grealish, Bernardo and Mahrez to slow the game down.

Bernardo, talking at length about the changes in his game, was also able to break down exactly what the manager wants from City and, therefore, what anybody watching them should judge the team and the individuals by.

“I think what he really wants is for the midfielders and the strikers, when the action is clear ,of course, we have to attack, but when we feel that the action is not clear to try not to force it, because if we force it too much, then we don’t give time to our defenders to join us and then to control the counter-attacks,” he says.

“And when you give time to the defenders to join us, then you can recover the ball quicker and then attack again. That’s what we try to do.”

Basically, if City’s attackers roam forward while the defenders and midfielders are out of position, if they lose the ball then those defenders and midfielders are not in position to win the ball back, and they’re easier to exploit with fast breaks, as Newcastle did.

And about that ‘pausa’…

“With Pep I learned the different moments of the game. Ninety-five per cent of the teams against us, they sit back and they play 11 players behind the ball, sometimes 11 players inside their boxes, which is not easy,” he says.

“So for us it’s more the ‘pausa’ of going to one side, going to another, try to attract them and try to make them come to us a little bit to then try to find the spaces in behind. And then when you find the spaces in behind you have to change your rhythm, attack quick and finish the action so you don’t let them counter-attack.

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“But if you force it too much, then you do what they want, which is you get desperate, you get frustrated and then you don’t find the spaces.”

That’s when City lose the ball and can suffer counter-attacks.

“It’s something that we’ve been developing very well over the last years,” he adds.

“And then, of course, when you play against teams like Brighton that press man to man, like Liverpool that also try to press, I guess Arsenal this season as well and some other teams, you’re going to have to find other ways to hurt them, because they are teams that press high and you have to hurt them as well (behind their press). But in 95 per cent of the games you need pausa to try and find the space in behind.”

That’s what you call game intelligence.

(Top photo: Getty Images; design: Eamonn Dalton)

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