Update: Bernardo Silva has just told Hugo Viana what to look for in Man City replacement News

Manchester City must decide how best to replace Kevin De Bruyne. Bernardo Silva has offered an alternative way of starting that search.

Manchester City are losing a ‘bit of their soul’ when Kevin De Bruyne leaves this summer – and that is hard to find in a transfer market dominated by statistics.

City will scour the world for a replacement for De Bruyne after telling the Belgian his contract will not be renewed. When the scouts report back to Txiki Begiristain, they will probably have a very short list.

Because like when David Silva or Sergio Aguero left, they will find that someone of De Bruyne’s ilk is irreplaceable. Pep Guardiola has said as much about De Bruyne and even if there was a like-for-like replacement on the market they would be worth hundreds of millions at today’s rates.

Bernardo Silva was the latest to pay tribute to De Bruyne this week when he told ITV Sport: “A little bit of the soul of this team is going. It’s sad. It hard for us, we wanted him to stay with us and keep going.

“No disrespect to others but for me, he’s the best player in the history of the club. The only thing we can say to him is thank you, and wish him all the best. We’re sad he’s going. We didn’t want him to go, it is what it is.”

That suggests the City squad are aligned with De Bruyne in disagreeing with the club’s decision. De Bruyne’s emotion and confusion were clear when he spoke to reporters at Everton on Saturday about the decision made against his wishes not to continue a glorious journey.

Gary Neville is another figure to suggest De Bruyne could have continued, telling the Stick to Football podcast: “I get sad for Kevin De Bruyne. I feel like he has two options with the age he is at. He can play 40-odd games somewhere else, where he plays all the time – or he could still play at the same level he is at now and remain as an experienced player at Manchester City, for the next two years

“I don’t know why a player can’t just go from being great to just be a contributing player and still stay – and play 30 games for City.”

The problem is that City must rebuild their squad and have always put the club above their legends. It is why they have remained at the top – football is a business and De Bruyne’s powers have waned in the last two years. His hamstring was like a wet paper towel, he said, after the 2023 Champions League final and then the setback at the start of last season. This campaign has seen similar fitness issues and financially it doesn’t make sense to keep a top earner who can’t play every game.

It’s fair for De Bruyne to be disappointed, and it’s fair for City to make the difficult decision. Phil Foden is a logical successor in terms of position and influence, but he cannot play those defence-splitting balls De Bruyne can. It will take more than one player to fulfil every role De Bruyne has seamlessly rolled into one for the last decade.

“I think it’s final third, final third, he sees things other players don’t see but especially, he tries things other players wouldn’t dare to try,” Bernardo said. “You need those kind of special players that do things that no one expects in your team if you want to go for the big trophies and he was one of the main reasons why we achieved so much in eight seasons mainly.”

So while it will be easy to identify players who can play that killer assist or whip in a perfect cross, the hard part of replacing De Bruyne will be that ‘soul’ and fearlessness to try something risky.

If Viana wants to find the next De Bruyne, or his next talisman, maybe Bernardo is right and character is actually more important than numbers.

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