'Don't cheat your job' - Bernardo Silva has brutal truth for Man City stars

Manchester City captain Bernardo Silva spoke to British reporters in Palermo as he set out what kind of skipper he wants to be

Bernardo Silva means business at Manchester City

Bernardo Silva was honoured to be asked to be Manchester City captain this season - but concerned that Pep Guardiola was having to ask him. The manager ripped up his rule of letting the players pick their skipper after being unimpressed at the lack of leadership in the last campaign as the form of the team fell apart.

Kyle Walker began last season as captain but left in January after a string of poor performances to join AC Milan on loan, with Guardiola deciding not to take him to the Club World Cup when he returned. Kevin De Bruyne took the armband, although injuries prevented him from being able to lead regularly on the pitch.

Guardiola and the players pinpointed a defeat to Bournemouth in November as a moment when the alarm bells began to ring for the spirit of the side, with it taking four months before the qualities that had made City serial champions began to be seen again. And in a sign of how bad things got in the dressing room, Silva listed turning up on time and 'not trying to cheat your job' as standards that he was looking to bring back when asked what he needed to do.

"I think the biggest task, not just my task but of all the captains, is to create the right balance in the dressing room," he said. "I would say the right balance is good behaviour and respect in terms of arriving on time, in terms of performing well in training sessions, giving your best for the club.

"Don't take any shortcuts, don't try to cheat your job. But at the same time, balance this respect that we have for each other with competition, competing for your place, competing for your position.

"I want to play all games and the guy that's in my position, he also wants to play all games. I think that kind of balance of having a lot of respect and having a great relationship in the dressing room but at the same time competing against each other, I think puts us a step closer to fighting back."

One thing that you could not accuse Silva of lacking is fight. He and Ilkay Gundogan became the poster boys of City's decline last season as they were used virtually every game for months amid a major injury crisis that left the Blues looking ragged and, to quote Guardiola, old.

The setting for City's media duties before Palermo were undeniably old, a 16th century palazzo in an ancient city where the glory days of many buildings are gone. As if that wasn't enough symbolism, the room Silva sat down to speak to journalists in was dedicated to hunting with pictures hung on the wall of pheasants and rabbits that had been trapped as well as fish caught in a net.

Silva snapped back at the idea that the players were past their best back in March and has now signed up to lead City's rebuild as he aims to turn the squad back from hunted to hunters.

Guardiola signed a contract extension in November when the team had just started losing games because he wanted to turn things around and Silva says that there is 'guilt' among the players from last season that is motivating them for the new campaign.

"In my opinion, the stability of a team and how well a team defends builds the rock necessary to then win games and win titles. I have a game in mind, I think it was Tottenham on the Carabao Cup when we got our fourth centre-back's injury, I think.

"John, Manuel, Ruben and Ake, in one game they're all out. That's when things started going down.

"Obviously not just that because a team with our experience, with our quality, even with that cannot go down as easily as we did. So there's a lot of, I would say, guilt.

"I’m not sure if that’s the proper word but guilt in all the rest of the players, in the manager, in everyone, on not doing better to overcome this situation. But we learned a lot of things, as I said. I learned a lot of things.

"You definitely learn who you can go to war with and who you can't in those moments. Hopefully it was a very good lesson for us."

Silva has always been popular at the Etihad and won fans over even more when he was seen looking less than impressed with a coffee in hand as City gave champions Liverpool a guard of honour in 2020. He didn't look much more thrilled when he was lifting the Anglo-Palermitan Cup on Saturday, reducing teammates to laughter as he dismissively raised it with one arm.

If he can be a joker, Silva is also clear that he will not tolerate messing around. These are high stakes and City's new captain wants his players to feel the emotions of winning and of losing to make sure that they follow the club motto of fighting to the end.

"I'm a bad loser. I hate losing. I played 12 years at Benfica, which is a big club in Portugal. The way that they educate us, you're not happy if you lose," he said.

"Maybe it's not a very nice thing to watch from the outside, but I like to think that you need players to feel bad when you lose game after game. You need to feel bad with yourself, you need to feel bad about the performance and that's the way I deal with it.

"We tasted defeat and you know when you taste success and you taste defeat, you know that it feels much better. We didn't enjoy last season. We didn't enjoy it. It was very frustrating, very painful for I would say almost all of us and we're back with that hunger to go again for titles.

"It's not about winning or losing, it's about competing for the title. We didn't even give it a try. I think emotionally we're definitely back. In terms of being hungry again, we're back.

"Let's see if we have the quality because at the end, this is all very beautiful, but at the end the quality on the pitch will make a difference if we're prepared to perform or not."