It is hard to see how Kevin de Bruyne fits into Manchester City's starting XI

It is hard to see how Kevin de Bruyne fits into Manchester City's starting XI

Bernardo Silva has improved the Blues offensively, while David Silva is too good to drop.

TO watch a Pep Guardiola team is to study football. The former Barcelona and Bayern Munich coach certainly isn’t the sport’s first philosopher, the first to make us think about the components of the sport, but nobody lays it out right in front of us like Guardiola. And in Kevin de Bruyne, he has a player who can help in serving those lessons. 

De Bruyne is no Lionel Messi, but he is the face of this Manchester City side just as the Argentinean was for Guardiola’s great Barcelona side. The Belgian embodies Guardiola’s footballing ideology better than anyone else at the Etihad Stadium and so with De Bruyne out of action for much of the season to date, suffering two separate knee injuries, City have lost an element of their identity.

This isn’t to say that the Premier League champions have folded without De Bruyne, though. In fact, in some ways they have thrived. Bernardo Silva has become a mainstay of the City team in the Belgian’s absence, giving Guardiola’s side more of a creative edge in the final third of the pitch. This is evident in City’s goal tally of 48 goals from just 17 Premier League games.

It’s entirely possible that with De Bruyne fit again Guardiola could fit the Belgian into the same lineup as Bernardo. While the Portuguese has filled De Bruyne’s place in City side in recent weeks and months, he is a slightly different sort of central midfielder. They occupy similar areas of the pitch, but the way they play the game differs.

With Bernardo and De Bruyne alongside each other, though, David Silva would likely have to drop out. Fernandinho could make way to accommodate a Bernardo-De Bruyne-Silva midfield trio, but who of those three would play in the anchoring role that is so integral to the success of Guardiola’s wider ideology?

Then there’s Ilkay Gundogan. Where would he fit in? And what about Phil Foden, who is only just starting to breakthrough at City? Bernardo’s rise could ultimately push English football’s great hope for the future further down the pecking order just one week after he signed a new long-term contract at the Etihad. 

Of course, this tactical problem is of the welcome kind for a manager. If Guardiola’s biggest head scratcher is that he has too many world class players to fit into the one midfield game plan, then he’s doing just fine. But nonetheless, Guardiola’s whole philosophy requires clarity for it to work and in Liverpool there is a rival team good enough to exploit any flaws in City’s approach. They have already, to a certain extent, managed to do that by leapfrogging the defending champions into top spot in the Premier League table.

If there was award for the Player of the First Half of the Season then Bernardo would be a contender for City’s. The Portuguese is now fulfilling the potential that convinced Man City to part with £43 million to sign him from Monaco in the first place. As an attacking entity, City have improved as a direct result of Bernardo’s rise.

But has that attacking improvement come at the cost of other qualities? De Bruyne is too good to be sidelined for much longer. The busy winter period, when the fixtures come thick and fast, will allow Guardiola to ease the Belgian back into first team action over a number of games. Squad rotation will make this painless, but in the long-term Guardiola will have to consider how De Bruyne and Bernardo fit into his masterplan. Both are too good to leave out, arguably the best at what they do in the Premier League, and yet they may not be compatible as a duo. Something has to give.

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