Journalist Rob Dawson has highlighted Bernardo Silva as being one of Manchester City’s most important players during their treble-winning season.
Pep Guardiola’s side not only won their fifth Premier League title in six years at the end of last season, they also won the FA Cup and their first Champions League trophy.
This has since led to numerous players being named in the ESPN FC 100 best player list, two of which found themselves being spoken about by one journalist, who couldn’t help but highlight one as being particularly crucial in City success.
Dawson praises Silva
Speaking in a recent video on the ESPN FC YouTube channel, Dawson said this about Silva after he and fellow City midfielder, Kevin De Bruyne, were named in ESPN’s top 10 attacking-midfielders in the world list.
He said: “It’s funny that you’ve got two City players really high up that list, Kevin De Bruyne and Bernardo Silva that probably offer very different things.
“In terms of what De Bruyne offers it’s pure output, it’s that creative hub that everything seems to go through him, the number of assists that he registers, Bernardo Silva is in the team probably for different reasons.
“Even last season he played out wide, he played inside, he played as a six at different points, he played at left-back in a couple of games which just shows you how versatile he is and towards the end of last season.
“Despite the array of attacking players that city had at their disposal, it was still Bernardo Silva in that front right position in the front three that really, when the season came to a crunch and they were looking to get over the line in those three competitions, the Premier League, the FA Cup and the Champions League, that it was Bernardo Silva who was first-choice really, not necessarily to do with his output but in terms of how hard he worked and his versatility.”
With the 28-year-old featuring in all but six of City’s matches last season, as well as completing the full 90 minutes in the FA Cup final and every Champions League game after the group stage, as well as appearing in all but four of their Premier League matches, this shows how prominent he was in seeing the club win their three trophies.
However, having scored fewer goals (7) than Erling Haaland (52) and delivering fewer assists (8) than De Bruyne (31), it’s clear that Guardiola still saw the importance in having Silva in the team for the big occasions, especially since, as Dawson said, he ended up playing in numerous positions throughout the campaign.
