Bernardo Silva has unleashed a veiled jab at unnamed Manchester City teammates following their disappointing FA Cup final defeat on Saturday afternoon. A 1-0 loss to Pep Guardiola’s bogey team, Crystal Palace, means Silva and co. will end the campaign empty-handed for the first time since the 2016/17 maiden voyage of the golden era.
Plenty of fingers are being pointed, but the prevailing sense is that the 10-time English champions have become victims of their own success. At some point, the winning machine was bound to sputter, and change now seems inevitable. With the January arrivals of Omar Marmoush and Abdoukodir Khusanov already signalling a crucial rebuild, more fresh faces are expected through the Etihad doors this summer.
City still face a defining seven days in salvaging something from this campaign. A win over Bournemouth on Tuesday is crucial if they’re to secure a top-five finish and keep their Champions League qualification hopes alive. But Silva has poured fuel on the fire with comments that hint at unrest behind the scenes, suggesting certain players haven’t been pulling their weight when the going got tough, as he offered a scathing assessment of their latest setback.
Manchester City manager Pep Guardiola with Crystal Palace's Dean Henderson after Crystal Palace won the FA Cup Related
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The Portugal international pulled no punches in his latest tirade
bernardo silva
Silva has conquered football during his time at the Etihad Stadium, helping City take full control of domestic football, as well as helping them win their first-ever Champions League mantle in the 2022/23 season. But that doesn't mean to say his expectations and hunger for more have faded at all. He said, as per Daily Mail:
"You learn a lot of new things, in the bad moments you learn new things. Who you can go to war with, first of all. Because it's in the bad moments that you see who the real ones are.
"And a lot of things that were good for us – not to take things for granted, for our fans, for the club. Don’t lower our standards. It's a tough season for us. It's a really, really bad season for us. Something has to change next year."
Silva’s damning verdict on City’s shortcomings could point towards dressing room friction. However, as the merry-go-round of transfer rumours begins to spin and pick up more pace, it seems his prayers to the powers that be are being answered already.
Big changes in M11 are already in the works, with Florian Wirtz, Morgan Gibbs-White and Tijjani Reijnders among those mooted as Kevin de Bruyne's replacement, while a right-back is expected to be high on the agenda, too.
This momentous rebuild will all be in the view of quickly reclaiming the side's dominance next term, and there will be no time for dilly-dallying in what could turn out to be Guardiola's penultimate season in charge.