Bernardo Silva has demanded more from his Manchester City teammates. The treble winners have drawn their past three Premier League games to sit third in the table. The reigning champions are only three points behind the league leaders Arsenal despite their recent poor run of results.
Speaking with mancity.com following City’s draw with Tottenham the midfielder spoke of his team being better. He said: “As a team, we need to see what we need to do better and then each one of us demand more individually. In the first half, I thought we were brilliant in the way we played and pressed, but then we need to score the goals. In the last minutes, we were able to score a goal to win the game but then we need to defend better as a team.”
Thoughts:
Bernardo Silva is right to demand more from his teammates. City’s past four games haven’t been up to the usual high standard the players or Pep Guardiola demand.
There have been a variety of reasons for the treble winner’s drop in standards of late. Injuries have depleted the European champion’s midfield forcing Rodri to play a lone hand in the centre of the pitch.
Also, it does appear that Pep Guardiola is playing more attacking football than last season. City played with more control last season en route to the treble. This season has seen the champions change their way of play. With Kevin De Bruyne out injured and Julian Alvarez and Jeremy Doku in the City lineup it is more attacking in nature.
It isn’t alarm bells yet for Pep Guardiola’s side. They have overcome issues previously to win 5 of the last 6 Premier League titles. But they do need the players to get back to their high standards, especially with Aston Villa up next for Manchester City.