Manchester City Season in Review: David Silva

During the close season, Man City Square is going to review each member of the 2015/2016 Manchester City squad and grade them for their year. Next up number 21 David Silva.

With all the transfer hubbub and the bombardment of images, media and merchandizing opportunities from the Cityzens Weekend and Pep Guardiola’s grand unveiling, we haven’t got doing one of these player reviews for a while. It’s easy to kind of overlook the past when the future ahead is so intriguing, particularly as the season just finished was one imminently forgettable. If in decades time your grandkids ask you what you remember in the old days about Manchester City in 2015/2016, about the most likely thing to stick out in memory was Samir Nasri bleaching his hair.

Anyway, let’s take a step back from all the furore and talk about David Silva. Now’s the perfect time too, he’s just finished his stint in the Euros with favourites Spain being knocked out early against a then-hungrier Italy who knew exactly how to tear apart the tiki taka but ultimately burned themselves out in the process. Silva, of course, was a first team regular for Spain and, it has to be said, was among their most impressive players overall.

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In France, Merlin displayed many of the qualities that we’ve come to know from him. Not necessarily statistical overpowering, but control, poise and an unshakable reliability to maintain possession and provide accurate delivery. This may well have come to many of you as a pleasant surprise, or relief would be closer to the truth, as in many ways his form last season was at times the exact opposite.

Silva was, as far as many were concerned, one of the many players who struggled through the season, looking lethargic, off-colour and in search of form that would never come. This can, like many of the others, be put down to injury. Manchester City did have just one too many on the year and Silva’s saw him feature only sporadically in the second half of the season and, ultimately, only make 22 league appearances.

Even still, in 22 league appearances Silva still managed to make 11 assists, his highest amount in a season since 2011/2012, which is pretty amazing, really. Further, while his overall pass accuracy was down year on year, it was still within career norms at 86.4% and well above the average in the team and league. What gives? Well, digging a little deeper, we can see Silva’s average passes per game were only 57 and his key pass average of 2.8 per game were both career lows and that’s the key to interpretation the un-Silva-like Silva we saw.

Silva was dominating, but not quite as dominating as he’s classically been. If you needed evidence how important David Silva is and has been in the middle of the park, it should be seen just how badly City struggle when he’s either injured or just not himself. Last season was the classic example.

Certainly 11 assists in 22 starts is impressive, but not a single one came against a top five club and 4 were against teams that got relegated. That’s not to minimise the importance of the man, but Silva is a big game player yet during the big games he failed to turn up. Obviously this can be put down to a number of things, but simply saying he’s 30 now and on the wane isn’t an acceptable explanation for the sudden decline, especially when one considers his improvement at the Euros.

It’s the Euros performance, coupled with the arrival of new Manchester City manager Pep Guardiola, which give hope to Silva and the fans. Free from injury and a chance for a fresh start under a manager who patented the Spanish style of play and makes it his own, Silva is a cert to have a rebound year domestically too.

It’s easy to forget about Silva, all the same. With Ilkay Gundogan in the door and rumours of other midfield options such as Toni Kroos still going strong, it’s easy to think there may not be any room for Merlin. My opinion is the exact opposite, I feel he will benefit perhaps most under the Pep system and find himself a regular on our starting XI, assuming his form is regained yet again.

Next: Transfer and Rumour Roundup

That’s all the future though, for last year I can’t help but shake the feeling that, some statistics aside, Silva just had an all-round poor season where he spent more time looking for form than actually in it. Still, as the statistics prove, even a poor Silva season, at 29 no less, is still a pretty good year overall. With that in mind, let’s just give him a 6.5 out of 10 with the expectation that when we look again this time next year, he will regain his place at the top of the pile.