Bernardo Silva has revealed Pep Guardiola hasn’t banned talk about the treble within the Manchester City squad after the Blues took control of the title race on Wednesday night. Bernardo is aware that it remains a possibility – this is the further City have ever got with the dream still alive – but is focused on maintaining momentum in their season at the moment.
Bernardo Silva said: “No, he hasn’t banned anything! We’re big men and we talk about whatever we want. These players know that the best way to achieve good things is to think just about the next one. If we don’t beat Fulham we put ourselves in a difficult position to win the Premier League. If we don’t win the Premier League we arrive in the final of the FA Cup and in the semi-finals of the Champions League not in a good momentum. We want to try and stay in this good momentum to try and go as far as possible. The team is doing very well at the moment and we’re going to try and keep it that way.”
City have hit top form at the right time this season. They are now 17 games unbeaten after the win against Arsenal and are playing as well as they have done at any point of the campaign. Several of their players are also at peak form for the season and Bernardo puts the improvement down to a gradual understanding of how to play with Erling Haaland in the side and getting used to a change of approach instigated by Guardiola. But Bernardo knows City can’t afford to become complacent after another dazzling display, with every game now almost do-or-die for their hopes of silverware.
Bernardo Silva said: “We changed the way we play because we never had this kind of player up from with Erling. The manager also changed the build-up a little bit from in the past years so maybe it took us a bit of time to get used to it and maybe it was just the momentum, as I said. I remember in my second season we were 10 points behind Liverpool as well and we beat them to win the title. We’ve always had these moments of unbeaten runs, of 15, 20 games and it came at an important part of the season happily. We have to keep it that way because if we don’t keep it that way the effort is for nothing because we can win the three competitions, yes, but we can also lose the three competitions. We have to be very alert to do our best and stay focused. It’s never done until it’s done in the Premier League. We’ve got to play against Fulham away. Then we have West Ham and Leeds [at home] then we have tough games like Everton away, Brighton away, Brentford away, Chelsea at home. They as well have tough games. It will be finished when it is finished. We’re not going to be complacent. We’re going to take this job very seriously and try to win every game, focused on Fulham away, which is a tough game.”
