David Silva doesn’t speak much English – but his message about Roberto Mancini is loud and clear.
The Spanish midfielder has been christened ‘Merlin’ by Manchester City fans who have fallen under his spell during the past three seasons.
But according to Silva, it’s Mancini who makes the magic happen.
As the Italian’s tenure as manager comes under scrutiny, Silva insists Mancini has the full backing of his team.
And he also believes the Blues boss is well within his rights to criticise individual playerspublicly if they fail to hit the heights.
“I don’t know why Mancini doesn’t get credit, but the players certainly appreciate him,” said Silva less than 24 hours after City had produced the perfect result ahead of today’s Cup showdown by winning the Manchester derby.
“We are with him and together we are a team.
“The players give him all the credit for being part of the success we have achieved.
“That success has been done together. All managers are different. Some criticise players more publicly, while others do it inside the club. For me, it is each to their own.
“If you are concentrating on football and doing your best, then things should not affect you. As far as I am concerned, it doesn’t affect me.
“If you know that you are doing the best you can every game, then it shouldn’t bother you. You just do the best you can.”
City’s failure to mount a sustained defence of the Premier League title and their inability once again to progress beyond the group stages of the Champions League has put Mancini under pressure.
But Silva, who picked up a hamstring strain in Monday night’s 2-1 victory at Old Trafford that threatens his involvement at Wembley, says that the Blues are still a work in progress.
He said: “United have been a big team for many, many years, while we’ve been building for only the last three years.
“Just look at the trophies we have won in that time. We’re not doing that badly.
“We are building a team and a club and we will win many, many more titles.
“We’re not worried about people commenting on us. Every year the spirit is better. In
fact, every day is better and, hopefully, it will get even better because that will help us win more titles.
“Three years ago we weren’t even qualifying for the Champions League and, let’s be honest, when we have qualified we have had two very difficult groups.
“It is clearly something we have to improve, but we will get there.”
If fit, Silva will come up against some familiar faces today. Fernando Torres and Juan Mata are team-mates when he wears the red shirt of Spain, while Rafa Benitez handed him his senior debut in a friendly when he was a 16-year-old breaking through at Valencia. But friendships will be briefly forgotten today as Silva looks once again to get his hands on a trophy that is special to him.
The man who has also won the World Cup, two European Championships and the Premier League explained: “My mum has got most of my medals back home in Gran Canaria – but I keep my FA Cup medal with me.
“Winning the Cup would help us to get over the disappointment of losing the league to United and it can be a springboard for next season.
“We won it two years ago and that gave us the belief to win the title last season.
“Hopefully the same thing can happen again.”
Meanwhile, Mancini feels Manchester City’s Champions League failure can now be justified.
Group-stage conquerors Real Madrid and Borussia Dortmund are through to the last four and could face each other in the final.
Mancini has insisted on both occasions when City have been eliminated from the tournament that they had fallen in a ‘group of death’. He said:“The four best teams in Europe are in the semi-finals.
“Real and Dortmund were better than us and that is why they are through – but any English team would have struggled to get through the group we were in.”
Check out all the latest News, Sport & Celeb gossip at Mirror.co.uk <a class="postlink" href="http://www.mirror.co.uk/sport/football/news/fa-cup-chelsea-vs-manchester-1829818#ixzz2QNpqVnlL" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;">http://www.mirror.co.uk/sport/football/ ... z2QNpqVnlL</a>