If the sole goal is to put together the most cohesive midfield then I actually think as crazy as this sounds our best midfield would be Rodri-Bernardo-Foden.
Even though KDB is obviously our best player I'm not sure we have any pairing of players currently that can play with him and not have an unbalanced midfield. See for me I don't really consider KDB a real CM. For me he's always been a CAM who just plays a bit deeper. He's always looking to make things happen and create chances; a real high-risk, high-reward kind of player. But for me the problem is that he needs the other two midfielders with him to control possession to create space for him and be proficient enough to make up for the amount of times he's inevitably going to give the ball away looking to make things happen (or his occasional sloppy moments). Silva did a great job of playing that foil to Kev and with Fernandinho (or occasionally Gundogan instead of one of the two) and the inverted LB there to prop up the midfield none of De Bruyne's CM deficiencies actually mattered. Now though that we don't use the inverted LB as much (we've started using Walker more for that role and he's got obvious limitations), Fernandinho's gotten older and we don't have Silva anymore a lot of these things can be exposed.
Now the problem is that the only player that can come remotely close to Silva is Gundogan, and really he's better off played deeper, or failing that, on the right side. Except that's where De Bruyne plays.
Then there's the issue that you can't play him with Bernardo because they occupy the same positions. It doesn't really matter how good they both are, it just doesn't tend to work, at least not immediately. Like Messi and Griezmann at Barcelona. So playing them together means one of them is going to suffer if not both. And you can't reliably play him with Foden either as they're both too attack minded. They both look to make things happen, and whilst that can pay off in some ways it can heavily backfire in others. We'd have to be at our absolute best pressing wise to make this work for 90 minutes against a good countering side. And this would put an immense workload on whoever's stuck in DM behind them. This is the strongest pairing though if you're looking for a goal at whatever cost.
So with De Bruyne I think you need to play Gundogan, really. And then again without the inverted LB you need a DM who's really good at keeping possession efficiently, and Rodri is better than Fernandinho in that regard. So...
But hypothetically if you take De Bruyne out things can make more sense. Bernardo can play in his favoured role uninterfered. Foden can play attacking football more freely. They both have great close control and can both keep possession brilliantly in compact midfield spaces, making up somewhat for their lack of currently natural CM ball cycling skills. And the pair of them press like nutters for long spells which really eases things for the DM, all three of whom we have are rather leggy. If we don't have an inverted LB it's ok because Foden can combine with the wider attacking LB and the LW to excellent effect, like Silva would have. Then after all of that you stick them in front of whichever midfielder can play the metronome role in front of the defence the most effectively to help make up for the other two's lack of ability in that sense, and that would in my opinion be Rodri.
Of course there are problems with this midfield too. Foden is really young so can be prone to erratic form from game to game. Bernardo is someone we're not sure of as being back to his best, and also he doesn't combine with Mahrez too greatly anymore. And Rodri (or Fernandinho or Gundogan) have obvious problems too. And of course the biggest issue is that there's no De Bruyne, who's creativity is constantly missed when he's not in the side. Also the trio would all lack the natural cohesion others would have due to never really being used together before.
I do think, if as a long term approach, we went for a front six of Rodri-Bernardo-Foden with Sterling-Aguero/Jesus-Torres we could see some promising results. And the version with Jesus is a sextet that could last for years.
So for me the best midfields are either Rodri-Gundogan-De Bruyne or Rodri-Bernardo-Foden. Although if we could magically replace Silva (or accelerate Foden's development by 2-3 years suddenly) then our best midfield would be that guy with De Bruyne and any of the DMs probably. It'd be both cohesive and great.
Even though KDB is obviously our best player I'm not sure we have any pairing of players currently that can play with him and not have an unbalanced midfield. See for me I don't really consider KDB a real CM. For me he's always been a CAM who just plays a bit deeper. He's always looking to make things happen and create chances; a real high-risk, high-reward kind of player. But for me the problem is that he needs the other two midfielders with him to control possession to create space for him and be proficient enough to make up for the amount of times he's inevitably going to give the ball away looking to make things happen (or his occasional sloppy moments). Silva did a great job of playing that foil to Kev and with Fernandinho (or occasionally Gundogan instead of one of the two) and the inverted LB there to prop up the midfield none of De Bruyne's CM deficiencies actually mattered. Now though that we don't use the inverted LB as much (we've started using Walker more for that role and he's got obvious limitations), Fernandinho's gotten older and we don't have Silva anymore a lot of these things can be exposed.
Now the problem is that the only player that can come remotely close to Silva is Gundogan, and really he's better off played deeper, or failing that, on the right side. Except that's where De Bruyne plays.
Then there's the issue that you can't play him with Bernardo because they occupy the same positions. It doesn't really matter how good they both are, it just doesn't tend to work, at least not immediately. Like Messi and Griezmann at Barcelona. So playing them together means one of them is going to suffer if not both. And you can't reliably play him with Foden either as they're both too attack minded. They both look to make things happen, and whilst that can pay off in some ways it can heavily backfire in others. We'd have to be at our absolute best pressing wise to make this work for 90 minutes against a good countering side. And this would put an immense workload on whoever's stuck in DM behind them. This is the strongest pairing though if you're looking for a goal at whatever cost.
So with De Bruyne I think you need to play Gundogan, really. And then again without the inverted LB you need a DM who's really good at keeping possession efficiently, and Rodri is better than Fernandinho in that regard. So...
But hypothetically if you take De Bruyne out things can make more sense. Bernardo can play in his favoured role uninterfered. Foden can play attacking football more freely. They both have great close control and can both keep possession brilliantly in compact midfield spaces, making up somewhat for their lack of currently natural CM ball cycling skills. And the pair of them press like nutters for long spells which really eases things for the DM, all three of whom we have are rather leggy. If we don't have an inverted LB it's ok because Foden can combine with the wider attacking LB and the LW to excellent effect, like Silva would have. Then after all of that you stick them in front of whichever midfielder can play the metronome role in front of the defence the most effectively to help make up for the other two's lack of ability in that sense, and that would in my opinion be Rodri.
Of course there are problems with this midfield too. Foden is really young so can be prone to erratic form from game to game. Bernardo is someone we're not sure of as being back to his best, and also he doesn't combine with Mahrez too greatly anymore. And Rodri (or Fernandinho or Gundogan) have obvious problems too. And of course the biggest issue is that there's no De Bruyne, who's creativity is constantly missed when he's not in the side. Also the trio would all lack the natural cohesion others would have due to never really being used together before.
I do think, if as a long term approach, we went for a front six of Rodri-Bernardo-Foden with Sterling-Aguero/Jesus-Torres we could see some promising results. And the version with Jesus is a sextet that could last for years.
So for me the best midfields are either Rodri-Gundogan-De Bruyne or Rodri-Bernardo-Foden. Although if we could magically replace Silva (or accelerate Foden's development by 2-3 years suddenly) then our best midfield would be that guy with De Bruyne and any of the DMs probably. It'd be both cohesive and great.