Man City have four options to replace Bernardo Silva after Pep Guardiola transfer revelation

When Pep Guardiola appeared at the Nou Camp to announce Manchester City's friendly with Barcelona later this month, the Catalan media were more bothered about something else than the charity match. Bernardo Silva.

Guardiola remained diplomatic, even if Barca president Joan Laporta tried to press the issue himself, and since then talk of Bernardo moving to Barcelona has quietened. However, with the Catalans looking to offload Frenkie De Jong, and making some questionable moves in the transfer market for a club with financial issues, that speculation has returned.

So when Guardiola admitted he doesn't know if Bernardo will still be a City player after the transfer deadline on September 1, it foreshadowed a month of likely speculation from Spain over one of the Blues' most important players.

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Bernardo has started all three of City's pre-season fixtures in midfield alongside Kevin De Bruyne, operating in a slightly more defensive role than his attacking brief last season. That is in part due to the arrival of two number nines, who have taken the pressure off the likes of Bernardo, De Bruyne, Phil Foden and Riyad Mahrez to play as the 'false nine'.

It's a role he performed so well in 2019/20 when his attacking input dropped from his brilliant form for the two years previous, but he instead developed his tactical and positional game to a level that improved his overall quality significantly. If he does leave, it would be a bigger blow than losing Raheem Sterling, Gabriel Jesus or Aleks Zinchenko.

Naturally, Guardiola said he hopes Bernardo will stay, and he backtracked slightly on his initial comments by insisting he was not saying that the