Bernardo Silva has made clear he is aware of what lies ahead when his Manchester City contract expires, but he says now is not the moment to dwell on that decision. With his deal due to end next summer, Silva faces a window in which he could sign a pre-contract with foreign clubs in January or become a free agent in 2026 should he not agree an extension.<\/p>\n
Speaking before City\u2019s Champions League clash with Monaco \u2014 the club Silva departed to join City in 2017 \u2014 the Portugal international acknowledged the timeline while insisting his attention remains on the team. \u201cI know exactly what I’m going to do but it\u2019s not the time to focus on it,\u201d he said. Silva added: \u201cIt\u2019s to do my best, to put the club back to where it belongs. We\u2019ve had a lot of captains who\u2019ve left but it\u2019s for the guys who have the most experience to pass it on to the young guys.\u201d<\/p>\n
The midfielder will make his 415th appearance for City in Lisbon and is set to move past Kevin De Bruyne\u2019s tally of 422 appearances to become the club\u2019s eighth-most capped player ever. That longevity has been accompanied by a full trophy cabinet. Silva has won six Premier League titles, two FA Cups and the Champions League with the Cityzens and could yet add more silverware in what might be his final season with the club.<\/p>\n
Pep Guardiola paid tribute ahead of the match, underlining Silva\u2019s influence both on and off the pitch. He enthused: \u201cHe cannot do better as a captain. He is one of the best players ever in training, it is a luxury for me to have had him these ten years.\u201d<\/p>\n
For now Silva\u2019s public message is straightforward: the future is known to him, but his priority is to help Manchester City recover and to share experience with younger team-mates as the campaign continues.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Silva knows his next step but will not dwell on it, prioritising City and mentoring younger players.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3458,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1056],"tags":[988,1006,1077],"class_list":["post-3459","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-man-city","tag-bernardo-silva","tag-captaincy","tag-contract-renewal"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3459","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3459"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3459\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3458"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3459"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3459"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3459"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}