Glowing piece about him in The Guardian
https://www.theguardian.com/footbal...ster-city-arsenal-david-silva-kevin-de-bruyne
At the other end City were all feints and tickles, cute angles, nice nudged passes but without anyone to apply the swift punch to the solar plexus.
His role is to supply so if no movement in front of him it generally renders him pretty much redundant by his standards.And that, sentence, from that Guardian piece, pretty sums up my previous criticism of Silva, particularly in the last third. Always one for the easy pass instead of taking a defender on or opening up the space for a shot. He was a bit similar for the first half-hour yesterday but there has been a definite overall improvement in his desire to get into scoring positions and make things happen, as he showed at Moenchengladbach and the second half yesterday.
Just in Little Aston hospital for a minor procedure.. First message of how did it go... from DS. The guy is class on & off the pitch.
I was at the doctors the other week and I'm still waiting to hear from him. But if he asks, tell him it wasn't anything serious. ;-)Just in Little Aston hospital for a minor procedure.. First message of how did it go... from DS. The guy is class on & off the pitch.
And that, sentence, from that Guardian piece, pretty sums up my previous criticism of Silva, particularly in the last third. Always one for the easy pass instead of taking a defender on or opening up the space for a shot. He was a bit similar for the first half-hour yesterday but there has been a definite overall improvement in his desire to get into scoring positions and make things happen, as he showed at Moenchengladbach and the second half yesterday.
Replace some with a hand full who shout loudlyJust have a little scroll down to the bottom of these pages where is says "career statistics" and look at how Silva's goal scoring record compares with Zidane, Xavi and Iniesta. Particularly Iniesta, who has a reputation for scoring goals - he's got 9 in his last six seasons combined.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zinedine_Zidane
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xavi
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrés_Iniesta
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Silva
I'm sure you won't hear many Madrid or Barca fans saying these players were "toothless" or "didn't score enough". Yet Silva gets criticised for that by City fans. It represents a fundamental misunderstanding of his game, and of football at the very highest level.
Unfortunately when some people think of a number 10, they think of Dennis Bergkamp or Ruud Ghullit getting 20 a season. But they were forwards who dropped deep. Silva, Zidane, Xavi and Iniesta are playmakers. They run games. It's not their responsibility to score all the goals. It's their responsibility to knit the team together, which they are all exceptional at.
It's really quite sad how under-appreciated Silva is by some of our own fans, maybe he came a generation too soon.
Always one for the easy pass instead of taking a defender on or opening up the space for a shot
So Pep tells him "Look Dave, I don't want to see you scoring or having a shot"?That's not his playing style and it never has been and I very much doubt that's Guardiola's expectation or instruction when he picks him in the starting eleven.