Manchester City midfielder Bernardo Silva won’t be leaving the Etihad Stadium next month, with City ready to deem any offers for him ‘pointless’.
The Portuguese star remains one of Pep Guardiola’s key stars and has enjoyed another great season so far, after choosing to stay at the club in the summer.
Speculation swirled once again around Bernardo in the last window, but he ultimately signed a new deal, which apparently included a £50 million buyout clause.
This is a very reasonable clause on paper, for a player of his quality.
But the player is not expected to leave City next month despite that clause being in place…
Bernardo Silva not expected to leave Manchester City in January, he wants to stay
The Daily Star have brought a new report about Bernardo ahead of the winter window.
They claim that while Bernardo does have a tantalising buyout clause, the player won’t be going anywhere next month.
That’s because the player wants to stay at the club until the end of the campaign at the very least.
City are said to have ‘no desire’ whatsoever to sell the player, who is obviously a hugely important player to Pep Guardiola, as evidenced by his 22 appearances across multiple different positions so far this season.
Clubs to have been linked with Bernardo in recent times are Barcelona and Benfica, his first club whom he only ever made one league appearance for.
Bernardo did recently say that he would be open to returning to them someday.
City never likely to lose Bernardo mid-season despite clause
Realistically, City losing their £43 million signing Bernardo in January was never going to be particularly likely.
Some clubs may well want to trigger that clause, but Bernardo’s stance seems fairly clear – he wants to see out the season with City.
That is brilliant news for Pep Guardiola, because the 29-year-old is easily one of the best players in the world for everything he brings to the team in terms of his tactical understanding of the game and versatility. As Gary Neville said last season as he was being handed his Premier League winners’ medal, the star is ‘amazing‘.
It’s possible he could leave the club next summer, but a lot of City fans would be prepared for that potential outcome considering it looked as though he was going to leave in the summer of 2023.
