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Bernardo Silva was back at the scene of perhaps his greatest goal for Manchester City and Pep Guardiola was eulogising one of his favourite footballers. Once he could savour a spectacular volley at Villa Park. Now, in defeat, it was his willingness to work and his adaptability that drew the latest of many tributes. “Bernardo is a special player for me; how he put his heart in those positions,” said Guardiola. “He is an incredible example for us, how he behaves. He plays attacking midfielder, holding midfielder, always defensively making an incredible effort.”
It hasn’t been a vintage season for Silva. And yet, unlike in past years, he would get in the City team three times: besides his normal berth on the right wing, he probably represents the best available option in this depleted, invariably defeated group as a No 8 and, as the only candidate with sufficient mobility, as the holding midfielder. If Guardiola could clone the Portuguese, he surely would. In a spell that has shown there are limits to his powers, he has a solitary Silva and he has overworked him. A diminutive figure can seem smaller as he is run into the ground.
It was telling that Silva finished Saturday’s 2-1 loss to Aston Villa as City’s deepest midfielder. The two men who have generally filled that role since Rodri was injured, Ilkay Gundogan and Mateo Kovacic, were both taken off. Each had been unable to deal with Youri Tielemans, to prevent him from playing defence-splitting passes, and Morgan Rogers, to halt his driving runs. Each goal could be traced to the lack of a genuine defensive midfielder.
It has left Guardiola with a regular refrain. “The solution is to bring the players back,” he said. But the most important will not return until the summer. For a manager who has spent more than £1.2bn at the Etihad, Guardiola can have an aversion to buying.
City’s initial plan was not to purchase a short-term replacement for Rodri. They realised any target would be deterred by the probability he would only be a first choice for five months. If that logic still stands, the context has changed. City have lost nine in 12. They knew Rodri would be a big loss, but not this big. Everything has been worse than they anticipated. “I thought it would be a difficult season but I didn’t expect that, to be honest,” said Guardiola.
And so the reasons for buying have mushroomed. City, losing to and leapfrogged by Villa on Saturday, dropped out of the fifth place that will probably bring Champions League football. They may have speculated to accumulate in the past. Now the case for buying is in part to protect their income: it reached £715m last season, but that included the funds from being Champions League quarter-finalists.
It rendered it stranger, then, that City’s current stance is that they are not interested in either Martin Zubimendi or Bruno Guimaraes, two players who have attracted their attention in the past. Zubimendi has a release clause that is easily activated, even if his loyalty to Real Sociedad meant he rejected a move to Liverpool last summer. Guimaraes had a release clause City opted not to utilise in June: £100m may have felt an excessive price – it certainly seems so for Jack Grealish, the only player to cost them that much – but there were reasons to pay over the odds for the Brazilian.
Part of City’s rationale is that a specialist holding midfielder would soon be sat on the bench when Rodri was on the pitch. Guimaraes, though, is both a No 6 and a No 8, a potential partner, anchor or substitute. That versatility means that had City beaten Arsenal to Declan Rice in 2023, he could have been a similarly multifaceted midfielder, taking on different duties depending on tactics and Rodri’s availability. When Kalvin Phillips arrived, City hoped he could play in both positions. The unpleasant surprise was Guardiola deciding he could operate in neither.
He can be choosy about holding midfielders. Rodri only arrived after an exhaustive search for Fernandinho’s long-term replacement, even if to revisit some of City’s targets during that period – Jorginho, Fred, Frenkie de Jong – is to realise how different they are and, for all their attributes, how each lacks the Spaniard’s blend of the constructive and the destructive.
Factor in the traditional difficulties of the January window and the probability that City’s plight would allow any sellers to raise their price and it would be hard to source a signing remotely of Rodri’s calibre. If any of the outstanding defensive midfielders in the game, whether Guimaraes, Zubimendi or Joshua Kimmich, whose Bayern Munich contract expires next summer, is available and interested, that could feel ideal.
But if not, with 27 goals conceded in 12 games, with every indication that Kovacic and Gundogan cannot shield the defence and that Guardiola’s system does not work without the stability they lost with Rodri, can City afford to be picky now? The Catalan’s football may be too complex for plug-and-play signings but the case for a compromise signing is growing, for someone who can shore them up in the short term.
Guardiola has been able to call upon Sergio Busquets, Philipp Lahm and Xabi Alonso in his managerial career. Rodri outstripped even them by winning the Ballon d’Or. But now for City, any specialist defensive midfielder, whatever their limitations, could be better than none. And without an arrival, Silva could have to spend more time scurrying around in front of the defence.
