When Bernardo Silva hopped off his jet in 2017, sporting pink shorts at odds with a drizzly Manchester, he wore the look of another diminutive creative midfielder who had just lifted the World Cup and arrived hungover seven years prior.
Around Manchester City, they earmarked the Portuguese in beach gear as the one who would eventually take over from David Silva. A little scuttling pickpocket who also owns the combination to the opposition’s safe, someone stronger than his frame suggests and with the attitude to rough it in England.
That is where he was on Saturday night.