Manchester City The Fourmidables: David Silva

After his incredible start to the season, David Silva was much more volatile in his performances over the remainder of the season.

Once Manchester City reached December, however, things really began to tail off for David Silva. Much of it was discussed in this analysis I wrote in April here. We’ll discuss it briefly again.

Silva’s form hit a major dip in the month of December which coincided with a hamstring injury that kept him out of the squad in a few of their league games. In his five December appearances, he posted a form rating above a seven just once which came in their final game of the month against Southampton.

Silva had one of his worst performances of the season in City’s first Premier League loss at Chelsea on December 9th. In the 68 minutes he played, he completed just 82.8% of his passes, his second worst pass completion percentage of the league season to that point, and finished the game with a form rating of 5.95. He was forced off because the hamstring injury.

When he returned from injury in City’s game at Leicester just a few short weeks later, he failed to make any impact on the proceedings either. He posted an awful 5.91 form rating in his 20 minutes as a sub.

Silva continued to be quite volatile in his performances into the month of January. Though City were able to get themselves back into title race in their 2-1 win over Liverpool on January 3rd, Silva did not contribute much to the proceedings that night.

He started the game, but was taken off at the 65th minute. It was not hard to see why. His form rating that night, 6.07, was the worst of any City player. He completed just 67.7% of his 34 passes that evening, his worst passing performance of the entire season.

Everything that was working for him before December no longer was. Silva recorded more than one key pass in a game just once during this time frame (four against Southampton on December 30th). He posted a form rating above a seven once in seven League games as well. It looked as if the miles he had racked up during the opening months of the season had taken their toll on him.

Silva would begin to recover his form, however, by the end of the month, starting with City’s loss at Newcastle. In his five league starts from that January 30th game, to their 3-1 win over Watford on March 10th, he posted a form rating of 7.29 or better in each of his five starts. He contributed four assists during that time period, and was averaging 2.67 key passes per game too, not that far below his incredible run earlier in the season.

It looked as if his form was recovering. Unfortunately, another dip in form was on the horizon.

Silva’s form dropped once again after March 10th. It wasn’t quite the bad run of form that he had in his December-January run, but his performances went from great to relatively middling considering the lofty standards he normally plays at.

Over his final six Premier League starts, Silva would post a form rating below a seven in half (three) of those games. His three UEFA Champions League appearances during that run were all below a seven too.

Silva’s worst performances over the final third of the season came in Manchester City’s two games against Tottenham Hot Spurs in the UCL Quarterfinals. He was among the worst performers in their 1-0 loss in the opening leg away, posting a form rating of 6.30. He contributed just one key pass in his 89 minutes on the pitch, and completed just 78.6% of his 42 passing attempts.

In the second leg at home, Silva was even worse. He posted a match rating of 6.22, tied with Ederson for third worst on the team. He completed 73.1% of his passes, ended up with less than 30 attempted passes, and made just one key pass. Only Benjamin Mendy and Aymeric Laporte, who made two mistakes directly contributing to goals, were worse.

Silva did, however, put in one his finest performances of the season on the league’s final day against Brighton when City needed it most. He provided the assist to Aguero’s equalizing goal just seconds after Brighton had hit a shock opener. It was an incredible back heel pass that was perfectly weighted. It may have been his best assist of the season.

He also set up Riyad Mahrez on the goal that essentially put the game, and with it the title race, to bed.

Given all of this, then, how does David Silva’s season grade out?