OPINION
Trying to pick the most dangerous Manchester City player is like wondering who would have crushed you more easily, King Kong or those T-Rex’s he was always fighting? They can all hurt you, so pick your poison.
This season, though, it has been pretty clear that Bernardo Silva is about as good as it gets for the champions, and his inclusion against Everton on Wednesday night spells trouble for beleaguered Toffees boss Marco Silva.
City chief Pep Guardiola said at his pre match press conference, as per the Manchester Evening News, that: “To drop Bernardo right now is impossible, it’s him and ten more players. Every single game he’s been perfect.
“The other guys have to compete. That doesn’t mean I’m not confident in the others, they show me every game who deserves to play. It’s a competition for them as well.”
You don’t often hear that from managers, and Everton fans will be quaking in their boost upon hearing that Bernardo is definitely playing at Goodison Park.
It speaks to how well he has performed this season that he is now considered undroppable by Guardiola. That’s really quite remarkable, and it’s going to take a herculean effort from the Toffees to stop him from scoring or creating a goal on Wednesday night. It’s nigh on impossible on current form.
That’s bad news for Silva – Marco, not Bernardo – who needs a turnaround in his side’s fortunes in the worst way. His hot seat is reaching boiling point, and Bernardo’s presence on the pitch is unlikely to make it any easier for the Portuguese to mastermind a way of avoiding defeat on Wednesday.
Silva may consider having someone man-mark Bernardo, but the problem is he has such a fluid role in this City team. He pops up on the right, he drifts inside, he switches flanks, he comes deep, he covers every blade of grass on the pitch – it’s so difficult to prevent him from being involved in some capacity.
That is the task facing Everton on Wednesday, and Bernardo and co. could cause permanent damage to Silva’s job prospects. A big City win could send this Toffees team even further into a spiral of despair that would inevitably lead to the former Watford man losing his job.
Hopefully it doesn’t come to that, and Silva will have his players as prepared as possible to deal with Bernardo and his team mates. But this is a monumental task for a woefully out of form Everton team. Let’s hope they can limit the irrepressible Bernardo as much as possible.