Sir Alex Ferguson had a look at David Silva while the midfielder was playing in the top division back in his homeland Spain, but, the Scot eventually decided against landing him at Old Trafford as he believed the midfielder would not be well suited to the Red Devils.
According to Ferguson, the thing with the number 10 players is that they don’t contribute anything defence wise. The defensive liabilities are not there on them whatsoever. So, if you go with them, it becomes really, really important that everybody else playing at the other positions do the job perfectly; otherwise, the team would be in trouble.
In a chat show that was widely reported across the web, including at bet-bonuscode.co.uk, Ferguson said, “Silva was on my radar and there was another guy too in the set up of Valencia many seasons before, but, I was pretty reluctant signing those types of players throughout my managerial career because you can’t expect any defensive contribution from them. They would not give you that and it was probably not in line with the formation that I wanted at United.”
“However, over the years, we have seen quite a lot of players emerging as greats playing as number 10. There is no denial of that. But, I personally was not that comfortable assigning that role to anyone.”
Silva, however, made the move to England eventually, not to United, but, to City and actually went on to become very successful in Barclays Premier League. A couple of titles that City has won since his arrival, he has important roles to play in that.
The 29-year old is enjoying a wonderful time in the Sky Blue jersey this summer too. He has had more assists to his name than any other player so far in the English top division.