What a player.
Look at the spine of the Manchester City side that won the Premier League title in memorable fashion in 2012 and it feels very much like a bygone era. Joe Hart is gone, Vincent Kompany is in decline, Yaya Toure is out of the picture (in the first-team anyway), and it looks as though the future in attack lies with Gabriel Jesus, not Sergio Aguero.
But while the legendary core of Roberto Mancini’s title-winning heroes has mostly dissipated, David Silva has remained. There he is, still shining among Pep Guardiola’s expensively-assembled squad of exciting new things. Kevin De Bruyne has been outstanding this season, but he’s no Silva. Leroy Sane has come on leaps and bounds, but he’s no Silva. Raheem Sterling has transformed from a strangely unfulfilled talent to City’s match-winner extraordinaire, but he’s still no Silva.
Perhaps the best piece of business City have done recently has been to tie Silva down to a new contract. The Spain international put pen to paper on fresh terms at the end of November. City fans collectively breathed a huge sigh of relief, as speculation over his long-term future began to pick up pace in the background.
David Silva is ridiculous. Worth staying up tonight to watch him alone.
— Gary Lineker (@GaryLineker) December 13, 2017
But he’s here to stay. And what a difference he makes. The popular perception of elite footballers is that they slowly decline once they hit the wrong side of 30. In the Premier League, that’s often the case, but there are notable exceptions = and Silva is one of them.
He is now 31 but is still playing some of the best football of his life. Five years on from inspiring Mancini’s City, he’s still the club’s creative fulcrum: peerless, unrivalled, immensely effective.
Against United on Sunday, even those packed inside Old Trafford wearing red could only drool and applaud at Silva’s silky efficiency. United have a big team, full of brawn and muscle, but it’s never quite the match for Silva, that most coveted type of footballer, elusive yet strangely magnetic. A bit like Eden Hazard, but with a shaved head.
Even with his slight figure, Silva glided magnificently between the channels, always linking always probing. With years of experience under his belt at this stage, he has become a master of either unlocking the opponents’ defence or freeing up space for teammates. Sometimes, he just goes and scores himself.
He struck the opener, hooking the ball home from close range after United failed to clear Sane’s corner. Beyond his goal, though, Silva’s contributions were impossible to ignore. Manchester City’s official website compiled a video showcasing his every touch against United. My advice would be to watch it and bear witness to a player utterly in control of the game, stringing passes effortlessly, joyfully skipping past Ander Herrera or whatever red shirt tried to stop him.
Only three players have 5+ goals and 5+ assists in the Premier League this season:
David Silva (5 and 8)
Kevin De Bruyne (5 and 8)
Leroy Sane (6 and 6)All three play for Man City 😳 pic.twitter.com/xTG5AgIACk
— Match of the Day (@BBCMOTD) December 13, 2017
His winner against West Ham last week, coming seven minutes from time, was also a thing of beauty, stretching to turn the ball in acrobatically and clinch three points.
On Wednesday night, Silva ran the show at Swansea City too in a 4-0 win, scoring twice to continue his wonderfully productive run in front of goal. On a cold, mostly miserable night in south Wales, for footballing nerds watching Silva was like cuddling up underneath a blanket with a cup of hot chocolate. With marshmallows. Beside a fire.
His second at the Liberty Stadium was almost offensive in its superiority, sliding a no-look pass to Sterling before running in to latch onto the return, dinking it over delicately over Lukasz Fabianksi.
There is a striking stat which sums up his efficacy recently – that he has surpassed his goals tally and equalled his assists for last season, but in 18 fewer games.
Whether it’s introducing a sense of controlled purpose to City’s attacks or injecting some much-needed urgency, there is no-one better than Silva. He remains as graceful and deceptively deadly as he was in 2012, when the world really began to sit up and take notice of his remarkable creative capacity, and he remains as important to City as he was back then too.
It’s a brave new world at Manchester City, full of shiny new toys. But their Silva is still their Silva, and they’re all the better for it.
