In Manchester City's win over Aston Villa on Sunday, Pep Guardiola took defender Ruben Dias off at half-time as he was on a yellow card. Three days later, and makeshift defender Bernardo Silva was in the same situation, yet lasted the full 90 minutes in a crucial win at Arsenal.
Bernardo was effectively playing as a left-back at the Emirates, tasked with stopping Bukayo Saka. While he was effective in that duty in the first half, he had to accept a booking after one too many fouls on Arsenal's number seven. However, Guardiola persisted with Bernardo at left-back until the hour mark, when Nathan Ake moved over and City went on to secure three massive points.
And Guardiola pointed to Bernardo's intelligence not to put himself in a situation where he could get sent off, when asked if he had considered replacing the midfielder at half time.
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"A little bit," he replied in an interview with Amazon. "But Bernardo's so intelligent, he doesn't lose his head. We put Bernardo in the middle, I'm not stupid to put him in the left-back because he's not a left-back. Man to man you don't have the extra player.
"Bernardo is so important for us. He's so intelligent, so clever to understand what's going on, what happens. He adapts immediately, correct everything. He's a guy who starts at left-back and finishes as a right winger. Few players can do that."
Later, Guardiola expanded on why Bernardo started in the defensive role in the first place, with more praise coming from the manager.
He said: "It was for an extra man, we use it many times in our career here, Fabian Delph played in that position, Aleks Zinchenko played in that position. I just say thank you for the commitment to try to do it.
"But normally this extra man, normally you cannot use it against man-to-man, but Bernardo has something special in his personality, character. He started at left-back and finished on the right wing, it shows how good he is as a player.
"Normally the players say which position they play. ‘I am a centre-back’. No, he plays football. He understands playing in any position because he is so smart. He did it really well."
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