The Warm-Up: David Silva is going out in style
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Updated 09/07/2020 at 07:51 GMT
Meanwhile Eric Dier will be taking a break...
David Silva of Manchester City looks on during the Premier League match between Southampton FC and Manchester City at St Mary's Stadium on July 05, 2020 in Southampton, England. Football Stadiums around Europe remain empty due to the Coronavirus Pandemic
Image credit: Getty Images
THURSDAY’S BIG STORIES
We’re going to miss David Silva
This will be David Silva’s last season as a Manchester City player. Two unstoppable forces have come for him — age and Phil Foden — and though he won’t be leaving with another title winner’s medal, he’s still got it. At least enough of it to demolish Newcastle United.
Silva picked up two assists, scored a goal, and generally bossed the place as City rattled five past Newcastle. Admittedly, a very end-of-season, we’ve-got-our-40-points, can-we-go-home-yet Newcastle, but honestly, we’d watch Silva play against anybody. Even his heir apparent was impressed.
Among the many things rendered impossible by the coronavirus: testimonial games. At some point over the last few months an invitational Valencia All-Star XI should have rocked up to a packed Etihad and lost by the odd goal in thirteen. Hard to see how any part of that tradition can be justified at the moment. But Pep Guardiola is determined to get it done at some point:
What [Silva] has done is incredible, fantastic. Not just for the game today, for the last 10 years. What we want is for the people to come back to the Etihad for a game for him as one of the legends of the club.
For no great player’s career can truly be complete, until they have played 45 minutes for their two favourite teams in front of a stadium all wearing masks of their face.
Wolves, Lower
They’re an odd team, Wolves. Absolutely crammed with talent, but often very reluctant to do anything exciting with it. You can’t be too critical, given the way they’ve established themselves among the Premier League’s Europa League contenders. And, indeed, the Europa League’s Europa League contenders.
Then they faff around doing nothing for an hour and a half against Sheffield United and you think: come on. The home side’s late winner almost felt sarcastic. “You don’t want to win this game? Fine. Now look what you’ve done.”
Wolves are hanging on in sixth for the moment, but this result moved Sheffield United up to just one point behind them. Arsenal are one further back, Burnley one behind them, and Spurs, currently 10th, could jump all the way up to seventh with a win this evening. It’s a mess, in other words, because this part of the Premier League is made up of teams that cannot sort themselves out in anything like a consistent manner. But at least Chris Wilder seems to be enjoying himself:
To Dier is to do
You might have forgotten about this, since it happened so many years ago, but back in March Eric Dier clambered into the crowd to have a word with somebody. You just don’t see things like that any more. A crowd. At the football.
Turns out the FA hadn’t forgotten, and while Dier ambitiously tried to claim that his behaviour hadn’t been threatening — you climbed into the crowd, Eric — the FA saw things differently. Dier will miss Spurs’ next four games, including home games against Arsenal and Leicester. That push for the Europa League is looking pretty shaky.
But hey, maybe the absence of one of his first choice defensive midfielders will encourage Jose Mourinho to abandon control and try to actually win a game on the front foot. Maybe. Possibly. We can only hope.
IN OTHER NEWS
Nothing to do with football on the face of it, but then: what do they know of football who only football know? Here’s Michael Holding and Emily Rainford-Brent talking about racism — within cricket and without — and the Black Lives Matter movement.
RETRO CORNER
14 years ago today, Zinedine Zidane and Marco Materazzi walked out onto a pitch in Berlin and proceeded to engage in one of football’s greatest, weirdest, most intense two-handers. One gave away a penalty, the other scored it — just. One equalised, the other nearly took the lead again. And then, of course, one muttered something to the other, and received a forehead in the chest. There were some other players there? Well, probably.
HAT TIP
This week should have been devoted to the semi-finals of Euro 2020. But by way of consolation, here’s Mike Gibbons taking a look back at Andrés Iniesta and Spain’s all-conquering 2012 team.
Iniesta was always a scorer of significant goals rather than the scorer of a significant number of goals. When he bagged the winner in a global youth tournament in the Camp Nou as a 15-year old in 1999, it prompted the watching Pep Guardiola to comment to Xavi “You’re going to retire me, but he’s going to retire us all.”
COMING UP
Two Premier League teams in trouble. Two home games. Two big names coming to visit. Dire, Dier-less Spurs are off to Bournemouth, and then Aston Villa host every neutral’s favourite entertainers Manchester United.
Tom Adams will be here tomorrow to bring you another episode of “Mason Greenwood: Really Quite Good”.
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