Guardiola played Bernardo Silva as a defender against Aston Villa, new bizarre tactical plan

Pep Guardiola has the Abi for thinking outside the box and his latest tactical craziness saw Bernardo Silva deployed as a defender against Aston Villa.

Man City won 3-1, with Rodri, Ilkay Gundogan and Riyad Mahrez all on target it in the first half. Ollie Watkins denied them a clean sheet with a consolation strike in the second half.

As we know by now, Guardiola is the worst manager for FPL lovers with his constant rotation and the fact that you can never seem to predict his starting XI.

And he lived up to that on Sunday, with a whole lot of eyebrows raised when the line-up was revealed and City only had three defenders in Kyle Walker, Ruben Dias and Aymeric Laporte.

However, it soon emerged that Silva was effectively playing as a left-back out of possession and then reverting to his central midfield role when City had the ball.

But with Laporte going wide, there were times where the 5ft 8 Portugal international dropped in at centre-back and challenged Watkins in the air.

Silva is such an intelligent player and mastered the position with ease. It worked a treat and with Silva always the free man, he was key in City bypassing Villa's high press, as the below clips show.

Pep Guardiola deploys Bernardo Silva deep to beat opposition high press #Pep #ReInventingTheGame pic.twitter.com/ieXzVNetlg

— The Pep (@GuardiolaTweets) February 13, 2023

Barring goalkeeper, he has pretty much played every position for City since his move in 2017 and Guardiola claimed he has the ability to play in ten different roles after the win.

"He has the ability to play in 10 positions because he's so smart," Guardiola said.

"He's not tall but he's smart. I like Rico [Lewis] in these positions like [Fabian] Delph or [Oleksandr] Zinchenko in the past.

"Rico is the best to play in these small gaps, small positions, he’s so intuitive, but today I wanted Bernardo there, I need him. Bernardo is so important for us.”

He had 107 touches across 90 minutes and finished the game on the right wing in the second half when Riyad Mahrez was brought off but fans couldn't believe his showing at left-back.