Pep Guardiola<\/a> than anyone else \u2013 with his 450th City game coming in the 4-0 win over Liverpool on Saturday \u2013 and was named City\u2019s player of the season in 2018-19.<\/p>\nA club statement paid homage to his \u201cglorious\u201d nine-year spell with the club, adding: \u201cThe 31-year-old\u2019s contribution to our greatest sustained period of success is incalculable.<\/p>\n
\u201cAlongside that phenomenal trophy haul, a tally of 76 goals and 77 assists further illustrate Bernardo\u2019s magnificent all-round contribution to the City cause.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe recently moved into the top 10 of all-time City appearance holders, overtaking a host of other notable former players, including David Silva, Paul Power and Willie Donachie.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn short, he will be deservedly remembered both as one of City\u2019s finest and most popular players of all time.\u201d<\/p>\n
![\"Silva](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/SEI290568896.jpeg\")
Silva celebrating for Man City after defeating Arsenal in the Carabao Cup final (Reuters)<\/p>\n
Assistant manager Pep Lijnders let the news slip earlier this month, saging that \u201cevery good story comes to an end\u201d and that the Portugal international is in the final weeks of his time at the Etihad Stadium.<\/p>\n
Lijnders said: \u201cEvery good story comes to an end, and I hope he enjoys the last months \u2013 there are only six weeks \u2013 and has a good farewell. He deserves all that attention as well.\u201d<\/p>\n
Silva, who has attracted interest from Juventus recently, was a past target for Barcelona and had wanted to move on to a warmer climate than Manchester. <\/p>\n
Lijnders admitted City will face a struggle to bring in a similar player, adding: \u201cYou never replace a player with the same kind of player because they don’t exist. Bernardo Silva is unique. The way he controls games, the way he moves, the way he receives, the way he leads, the way he sees the solutions. All these things. <\/p>\n
![\"Bernardo](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/Pep-Guardiola-Bernardo-Silva-pa1ymuw4.jpeg\")
Bernardo Silva (right) has played more games under Pep Guardiola than anyone else (PA)<\/p>\n
\u201cYou never search for a replacement of one type of player. You search for what is needed to grow with the team and somebody who can fit in the first 11. And then you hope, with our academy, with the young players we already bought, that they can make that step as well in the midfield positions. <\/p>\n
\u201cIf you see our young boys in the academy, then they have to make that step and to grow. But the most important is that the seniors who stay for a long time, that they stay, that they stay, that they stay. That they are always there and around that, you can move. <\/p>\n
\u201cBut it will be hard because, as I said, in the game, when he is not playing, you will see how he is missed, and that\u2019s one game. Imagine a season.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Your support helps us to tell the story From reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":898693,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[8813],"tags":[253310,253312,748,17733,251751,393,299,253311,10534,104592,4884,44888,8883,46409,2465,253309,47681,224217,457,2249,10031,93,3188,253308,253307,108655,8467,16,252300,15],"class_list":["post-898692","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-manchester","tag-ataturk-olympic-stadium","tag-bernardo-silva-soccer-midfielder","tag-britain","tag-celebration","tag-club-soccer","tag-england","tag-europe","tag-final-game","tag-final-round","tag-full-length","tag-great-britain","tag-horizontal","tag-inter-milan","tag-istanbul","tag-manchester","tag-manchester-city-f-c","tag-match-sport","tag-olympic-stadium","tag-people","tag-photography","tag-soccer","tag-sport","tag-success","tag-trophy-award","tag-turkiye-country","tag-two-people","tag-uefa-champions-league","tag-uk","tag-union-of-european-football-associations","tag-united-kingdom"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":"Validation failed: Text character limit of 500 exceeded"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/898692","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=898692"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/898692\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/898693"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=898692"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=898692"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=898692"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
![\"He](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/1497503493.jpg\")
He was part of the victorious Champions League team in the 2022-23 season (Getty)<\/p>\n