How Bernardo Silva felt about playing left-back for Benfica
By Tom Gott
Manchester City's Bernardo Silva was surprisingly deployed at left-back by Pep Guardiola during Wednesday's 3-1 victory over Arsenal, and it wasn't his first experience of the role.
Nathan Ake, who has been City's usual left-back recently, was shifted into a central role and vacated his space for Silva, who was tasked with keeping up with Arsenal star Bukayo Saka down that side of the pitch.
It yielded mixed results and Silva eventually found himself back in attack after a second-half substitute saw Manuel Akanji join the defence and Ake shift out to the left.
Interestingly, it wasn't Silva's first stint at left-back. During his time with Benfica, where he learned his craft before exploding onto the scene after his 2014 move to Monaco, Silva was actually played in defence by then-manager Jorge Jesus - and it contributed to his decision to leave the club.
In 2019, Silva was asked by El Pais whether there was any truth to claims Jesus tried to use him as a left-back in training.
"It wasn't in training, it was during a pre-season in friendlies," Silva said. "I came up [from the academy] with the intention of staying in the first team, but the coach didn't count on me and put me at left-back.
"I played one game in the league and at the end of the season he told me that he wanted me to go for another year with the B Team. I felt this was not the best option for me, so I decided to leave and found Monaco."
Silva took up a similar role in City's 3-1 win over Aston Villa, but his job for that game was significantly different. The Portugal international played as an inverted full-back and spent much more time in central midfield, instead of the traditional left-back role imagined for him in Benfica,
It's a position in which City are not the strongest. January's departure of Joao Cancelo to Bayern Munich leaves just Sergio Gomez as a natural fit for the position, and the 22-year-old was a winger as recently as the 2020/21 season.
Ake and right-back Rico Lewis have both been deployed on the left, and now Silva appears to have established himself as an option.