Tottenham Hotspur failed to land Bernardo Silva over the summer, and Pep Guardiola now thinks the Manchester City star is back in top form.
City picked up a huge win over the weekend, beating Chelsea 1-0 at Stamford Bridge.
Gabriel Jesus won it with a second-half strike, with City able to land the first blow in the title race.
A key to the win was Silva, who helped City tick in midfield alongside Rodri and Kevin De Bruyne.
Tottenham were linked with Silva
It looked like Silva would be leaving Manchester City over the summer.
Duncan Castles claimed that Silva was interested in joining Tottenham Hotspur as part of a part-exchange deal for Harry Kane.
However, The Athletic then stated that Silva had made it clear he didn’t want to join Tottenham.
Agent Jorge Mendes was seemingly pushing for Silva to join Tottenham, but Spurs couldn’t make it happen.
Guardiola raves about Silva
With no deal done for Silva to leave City, he has simply had to knuckle down and get back to playing for Pep Guardiola.
Silva now looks back to his best at City after a disappointing campaign last season, leaving Tottenham to wonder what could have been.
Boss Guardiola has now told the Manchester Evening News that he thinks Silva is in ‘exceptional’ form.
Guardiola even feels that Silva is getting back to the level he was at in the 2018-19 season – the best player in England.
“What a performance today! He’s so intuitive. It’s not his role as a holding midfielder but he knows exactly how to play it and how to anticipate what is going to happen, with the ball or without the ball,” said Guardiola.
“Against Norwich he played exceptional, against Arsenal he played exceptional, Southampton he play at the level of the team – that was not good, our build-up was not good,” said Guardiola. How well he played (at Chelsea) is no surprise. How many times have we seen it? How many times?”
“He was an incredible signing for us because he’s an exceptional person. I never forget the second Premier League we won, with 98 points, he was the best player in England. He was nominated (for an award) but he was the best. After that season, later he dropped a little bit, he was not in the position but now he’s back and hopefully he can help us. If, at the end, he wants to leave and decides (to go) the only thing I can say is that the guy or the club that gets Bernardo is going to take one of the best players in the world,” he added.
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