In a season when a new, young and raw Manchester City team gelled together to come within touching distance of a domestic treble that remains one of the rarest achievements in English football, the player of the season has to be the man who did the most to bring everything together.Some around Pep Guardiola believe Bernardo Silva could be his favourite ever player. You would never get the Catalan to admit to having a favourite, and he has always put Lionel Messi on such a pedestal anyway, but if those who see him close up get the feeling Bernardo is the most beloved of all, then that is really saying something.One of the traits Guardiola loves most in players is the willingness to take the ball under pressure, no matter what. It is something he admires in Rayan Cherki, too, but while the Frenchman is a work in progress in other areas, Bernardo has become the full package.He has been playing the past two seasons, in particular, for the benefit of his team-mates. Last season he struggled, perhaps more than any other City player in a difficult campaign, but he always did what he could to help get City out of a hole. This season, as captain, it is hard to think of anybody who has done more to put the team back at the top, as they won a cup double and kept the title race going into the final week.“Last season, Bernardo Silva was there every single game,” Guardiola told reporters earlier this season. “Exhausted! But he was there. After 50, 60 minutes he could not run one minute, and in certain moments he said, ‘Pep, I’m drained. My mind is not anymore. It’s defeat, defeat, defeat’. But he was there!”Bernardo came in for a hammering from some fans amid the turbulence of last season, when an injury-hit City side suddenly looked very old. They were ineffective in their pressing and it meant players without the legs to cover huge distances quickly were exposed in a way Guardiola’s system usually protected against.It was rather fitting that the likes of Bernardo, Ilkay Gundogan, Kevin De Bruyne and Mateo Kovacic were integral to the late season rally, when Guardiola got a grip of things again and asked his senior players to slow matches down and scrap their way to a competent finish.Yet this season City have had to aim for much more than that. They have had to go back to playing with more freedom and verve and they have had to do it while bedding in not just new players but ones generally unsuited to Guardiola’s style of play, like Gianluigi Donnarumma and Antoine Semenyo.City have bought players with other qualities to help insure them against the rise in physical, bruising man-to-man marking and set pieces, English football’s backlash to Guardiola’s massive influence on the game in this country.City’s is a new, dynamic and physically-imposing team. Abdukodir Khusanov is lightning fast. Matheus Nunes and Nico O’Reilly, two full-backs who would probably make up the top three players of the season, are strong and quick. Semenyo and Jeremy Doku are direct wing threats, Erling Haaland is Erling Haaland. Bench options like Omar Marmoush and Savinho are incredibly direct.And at the very heart of it all is the same short, wiry technician who looked so out of place last season.He has become the foundation of the team, the one who understands the game plan, and has the intelligence, personality and ability to carry it out, more than anybody. Premier League midfields have become battlegrounds but all season he has shown there is still room for actual football to be played.His evolution as a footballer during his 10 years in Manchester is fascinating. Signed as a magical attacker capable of dancing off the wing and putting the ball into the top corner, he has become just as known for the distance he covers, tracking back and winning duels. He has combined technical ability with the kind of dogged tenacity and effort that defines the more unsung players in a team, like somebody spliced together Robert Pires and Jordan Henderson.This has been integral to City’s season. As captain he set out to re-establish the standards in the dressing room that had slipped last season, and Guardiola has used him as the example to follow as he instilled the same team spirit that defined his old sides in this new one.The manager has focused on teamwork during meetings this season, using countless clips of the type of body language he does and does not want to see, and the sight of his players going over to Bernardo to congratulate him for running back with Kai Havertz in the game against Arsenal in April is perhaps the greatest example of how it has all come together.“I sleep better when I decide to play Bernardo Silva and I have to take care of my health,” Guardiola said in January. “He’s another type, a competitor, he has fire in his eyes still. Hopefully he can inoculate this fire to the rest of the group. How we defend every ball, read what we have to do. The guy who creates excuses forgets the mistakes and he never finds excuses.”Guardiola normally lets his players decide who will be captain but last summer he took matters into his own hands and gave the armband to Bernardo (who initially turned it down, because he felt it should go to somebody who will be at the club for longer).Pep Guardiola wanted Bernardo Silva as his captain this season (Patricia de Melo Moreira/AFP via Getty Images)Guardiola tried to change that, too; he spent the season trying to convince Bernardo to stay, even at times when the manager knew he himself might be moving on.Bernardo has actually spent a lot of the season out of position. It usually happens when he drops deep to help a team-mate out of a tricky situation, and it means he is not where he ‘should’ be according to the tactical plan for the day. Guardiola does not stamp that out, in the way that he tells Cherki to stay higher up the pitch rather than getting the ball deep, because Bernardo’s actions are still beneficial, and usually help City outsmart the opposition’s pressing, especially because City’s build-up quality has dipped due to the traits of the new arrivals.“The way he played today, he was the master,” Guardiola said after City beat Liverpool 3-0 in November. “That is why he is my captain. He is one of the most clever players I have ever met in all my years.”City players have stood out individually this season, though usually infrequently or only during certain stages of the campaign. Khusanov, who Bernardo helped so much in his difficult debut against Chelsea last season, has really emerged as a top centre-back since Christmas. Cherki, at times, has lit up matches with his maverick ability. Jeremy Doku, who missed the start of the year through injury, is starting to look like a top-level winger. Rodri’s importance has been obvious whenever he has been in the team. Haaland has got huge numbers again despite noticeably struggling with fatigue for months.Bernardo has been the top man throughout the season. Nobody has played more games for Guardiola than him, which shows how good and important he has been over the course of 10 years. And in a season when so much has changed around him, and City have won two domestic trophies anyway, he has never been more integral.