Manchester City opinion: Stats analysis of Guardiola’s main man

Premier League defending champions Manchester City are undergoing a stellar season, where they have a great chance of winning the quadruple.

Having already put Carabao Cup in the bag, they are in the semi-finals of the FA Cup, quarter-finals of the Champions League and are second in the Premier League, only two points behind Liverpool with a game in hand.

At the start of this campaign, there were some World Cup hangovers that seemed to hindered their progress. Eventually, Kevin de Bruyne got seriously injured in August 2018, which kept him out of action until December.

Just as when everyone expected Pep Guardiola’s men to not be the same without their best player, up stepped Bernardo Silva, a player who was signed by the Cityzens in the summer of 2017 for £43.6m.

The Portuguese international is a right winger by trade, but he has been playing terrifically well in the right central midfield position, exactly where de Bruyne made his name last season.

As a result of Silva doing well, City haven’t missed the Belgian star as much as expected. Hence, we are witnessing Guardiola’s men doing well and they are on the cusp of surpassing what they achieved last season.

Below, let’s analyse the performance of Bernardo Silva this season, focusing on the Premier League displays and use some stats as well:

Stats Analysis – Bernardo Silva

Guardiola’s team thrives on passing accuracy and dominating teams through possession football. Hence, expecting Manchester City’s midfielders to have stellar passing numbers is not an exaggeration.

Bernardo Silva is no different, as his pass accuracy rate is 86.7%. He is good at finding those critical final passes that open a defence up.

The Portuguese international provides them at an average of 1.8 per game. He has created 10 big chances so far.

While everything is rosy when a team has the ball, the greatness of them is personified when they put the hard work to win back possession as soon as they lose it.

Silva has been pretty good at that, especially after he began playing in the midfield. The 24-year-old’s tackle rate of 1.2 per game (with 75% accuracy) epitomises his willingness to run about and help the team win the ball back.

He has made 130 ball recoveries in 29 league appearances, that averages up to 4.5 per game. (Stats via Whoscored and Premier League)

All in all, the way Bernardo Silva has taken over the role of being the main man for Manchester City is impressive, to say the least.

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Conclusion

If there were any doubts about whether City would struggle without Kevin de Bruyne, Bernardo Silva has cooled that. In fact, the latter has done so well that he is slowly staking his claim to be the key player in the team.