Among the stars who renewed their contracts with their respective clubs this summer, Bernardo Silva's contract renewal is somewhat different.
He only renewed his contract with Manchester City for one year on the basis of the time limit of the original contract, from the original 2025 to the summer of 2026.
In addition, the English media revealed that this new contract also includes a buyout clause that is not outrageous in price. The Portuguese star still seems to be open to leaving the team in the future.
After completing the triple crown last season, many players in the Manchester City team immediately became interested. And coach Guardiola obviously didn't want so many players to leave the team in one transfer window, so he immediately tried to persuade some players to stay in the team after the team won the Champions League.
As a result, although Guardiola's retaining work started unfavorably, he failed to persuade the captain Gundogan, whose contract expired, to renew his contract to stay in the team, but in the end Walker and Bernardo Silva gave up the idea of leaving the team and promised to support Manchester City for the new season. Fighting on all fronts.
Bernardo Silva is 29 years old. He moved to Manchester City from Monaco in 2017 and has played under Guardiola for 6 seasons. However, since the end of the 2019-20 season, almost every summer window has rumors linking him with Barcelona. This year's situation is more complicated. In addition to the fixed gossip target Barcelona that appears every year, Paris Saint-Germain and Saudi Arabia have also joined the ranks of pursuit. Among them, the director of Paris, Campos, worked with Silva in Monaco, while the Riyadh Crescent in Saudi Arabia offered a sky-high contract with a weekly salary of 1.4 million pounds. Therefore, this time Manchester City's retention work seemed to be very difficult from the beginning. In the end, they were able to complete Bernardo Silva's contract renewal a week before the closing window. Guardiola's persuasion is considered to have played a key role in this process. .
And even though Manchester City has officially announced Bernardo Silva's contract extension this week, Sky Sports' chief reporter Sol Hucker still emphasized in his comments that Silva's contract extension is, to some extent, It can be described as a "reversal" played by Guardiola on his own, "PSG once believed that they were closer to signing Bernardo Silva this summer than ever before. One of the primary goals of this summer window signings, their director Campos and Silva are very close, and the Portuguese star also expects the two to work together again in PSG. However, just when Paris thought it was close to reaching an agreement, according to CAB도메인 Guardiola intervened at this point, and he did his best to persuade the players not to leave next season. You can even see the coach calling the renewal of Silva and Walker his 'dream' in the press conference. Fact Earlier this month, PSG accepted that Manchester City would never sell the player."
The reason why Guardiola is so determined to retain Silva is also related to the uncertainty shown by Manchester City in the transfer market this summer window.
After Gundogan's contract expired and left the team, Mahrez also moved to Saudi Arabia. Although Manchester City introduced Kovacic for the first time, the team chose to withdraw at the critical stage of bidding for Rice. Another star of West Ham, Paqueta, but the latter was caught in a betting investigation at a critical moment in the deal, and the negotiations between the two parties ended in a breakdown. At the same time, De Bruyne was injured in the first round of the league and will miss the opening stage of the league.
In the words of Athletic.com reporter Sami Lee in his column: "Manchester City can no longer tolerate the loss of top stars in the team this summer. Players leave the team in the same transfer window. According to these two criteria to make a list of players who must be retained, Manchester City found that Silva meets these two conditions at the same time, so he is a player that Guardiola must keep, because if in the same Losing Ilkay Gundogan and Bernardo Silva in one summer, Guardiola knew it would be a devastating blow to the team."
As for Guardiola's retention, Silva's response also made Manchester City fans feel relieved. Although rumors about his transfer continued until the opening of the season, Manchester City actually had a premonition in mid-July that the Portuguese star would follow Guardiola's suggestion to retain him.
When he completed his contract renewal this week, he specifically mentioned that although he achieved the treble in Manchester City last season, he is still extremely eager to accept a new challenge here: "Winning the treble on behalf of the team last season is very special It's so exciting to experience, especially when you're part of a team that's so hungry and passionate. And that kind of success adds to your hunger for trophies, and now the club is giving This is an opportunity for me to continue to represent the team. I love my coach, my teammates and the fans deeply and hope we can share many more fond memories in the years to come.”
After witnessing a large number of stars choose to go to Saudi Arabia to seek gold this summer, the English media also regarded Bernardo Silva's sincere speech of staying in the team as "a clear stream". Especially considering that Silva did say that Al-Hilal offered a sky-high contract with an annual salary of 75 million pounds, his choice is indeed eye-catching. However, the media believes that this renewal, Manchester City has added an additional buyout clause with a price of about 50 million pounds right.
As for the price in the terms, the English media believes that according to this summer's market conditions, the Portuguese star's worth is at least twice the price of the buyout clause, but Manchester City has somewhat compromised on this issue because they really need to negotiate with Schiller. Watts renewed.
But according to Sami Lee: "Just like the relevant clauses in Haaland's first contract at Manchester City, this kind of clause only makes sense when the player is really determined to leave. And considering that since Covid, Transfers above £45m for European clubs don't happen very often, so the existing buyout clauses are actually not as cheap as people think."
Although the buyout clause of this renewal contract gives Silva the freedom to choose to leave the team again next summer, Manchester City fans do not need to worry about Silva's state in the new season. Because starting from the summer of 2020, Silva will consider going to a place like Barcelona to continue his career after almost every season, but after making a commitment to Manchester City and Guardiola, the Portuguese Never let his coach and fans down. Last season, he played 55 times in various competitions, scored 7 goals and contributed 8 assists for the team, and was described by Guardiola as an "irreplaceable" hero. In the first round of the new season against Burnley, he once again stood up in a slightly passive situation. Guardiola was quite satisfied with his pass and control choices before the end of the first half, and even criticized the Haaland, who repeatedly asked Silva for the ball on the court, was impatient.