Manchester City: Silva back to his best

Manchester City impressed in their 3-1 win first leg victory over Dynamo Kiev, but it’s the return to form of David Silva which could herald the real turn around in their fortunes.

You know what they say, when you’ve hit rock bottom there’s only one way to go. OK, so, in the case of Aston Villa, that would be sideways. But for Manchester City one single game is enough to make everything look so much better. As we reported last night, City cruised to a 3-1 win in the first leg in their round of 16 matchup away to Dynamo Kiev. Three crucial away goals and a consolation gifted by a, now stereotypical, defensive howler by Nicolas Otamendi, may be the statistical outcome of the game, but there’s much, much more for Citizens to cheer about thereafter.

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Much could be made over the fact that Dynamo Kiev hadn’t played a professional football game since early December, and there’s some element of truth to that. Even so, they were playing at home and boasted a record of being unbeaten in Europe at home in two years. Manchester City were coming off the back of three successive, not horrific but demoralising nonetheless, losses and needed to rebound. And rebound they did.

On an individual level, barely a player on the park failed to deliver. Sergio Aguero still looks hungry (scoring his 16^th goal in 17 Champions League games, no less) and was, it has to be said, grossly underestimated by the Kiev back line, at their peril. Fernandinho’s move to the wing was a tactical masterclass from Manuel Pellegrini that the Brazilian took to ease and composure. Bacary Sagna continues to prove his weight in gold, as he remains, silently, one of City’s best players at the minute, with apologies to Pablo Zabaleta. Yaya Toure continues to swing from effortlessly bad to effortlessly brilliant and confuse us all, but you can’t deny that third goal was a peach.

Actually, let’s be fair, even Otamendi had a fairly good game by his standards. The return of skipper Vincent Kompany has both given him confidence and eased the pressure and he made some fairly good challenges early on. With this, City were able to move past the early Kiev domination and set the tone. From Aguero’s opener to the final whistle, there was only really one team in the end.

For all the contributions, I think the biggest and most pleasant surprise was undoubtedly David Silva. Switching from out wide to behind Aguero not only made room for Fernandinho to terrorise the Kiev defence, it put Silva back into his element. He was commanding, tricky and too much for Kiev to handle. More so than that, Silva just looked free to play how he does best – find space, create opportunities, link up with Aguero. He started the first goal and netted the second, but again that only really tells part of the story.

Perhaps more than anything it will come as a relief to Pellegrini that Silva is back on form. The Spaniard had seen a career slump this year that lurched seemingly from one bad game to the next. From November 28 until yesterday afternoon, Silva had only managed two goals and two assists in some 17 appearances, 11 of which he played the full 90 minutes. For Merlin, that’s a pretty severe drop-off in production.

With Manchester City buckling under the weight of multiple injuries, the last thing Pellegrini needed was Silva to suddenly forget how obscenely talented he is. Of course, he wasn’t alone. You could point to any of the back four and make a reasonable claim that they have about as useful as an ashtray on a motorbike. Even so, if City wanted to contend for anything this year they needed Silva back on form again and, it seems, that may well have happened.

Next: Manchester City 3 - Dynamo Kiev 1 Match Report

With the Capital One Cup final up next and the return leg against Dynamo Kiev set for March 15 (with City ever-so-slightly favoured to progress to the quarter finals for the first time in club history) this couldn’t come at a better time for Pellegrini. Much work remains to be done, but, after last night, we can all breathe a sigh of relief again. There’s only one way for Manchester City to go and the blue sky is the limit.