Bernardo Silva criticised Arsenal\u2019s readiness to claim a Premier League title and reflected on Manchester City\u2019s own shortcomings as the season reaches its conclusion.<\/p>\n
Silva told The Athletic: \u201cThey\u2019ve been growing and … well, it\u2019s a team that has been together for, what, five years now, so it\u2019s only natural that they would man up a little bit and start challenging for titles,\u201d adding: \u201cSo, yeah, let\u2019s see what happens.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Portugal international made clear his remarks were deliberate when asked whether he was \u201cin love\u201d with Arsenal. \u201cNo, I\u2019m not in love,\u201d he stressed. \u201cI do believe our main rivals [during his time with City ] were Liverpool by far.\u201d<\/p>\n
Those comments come with the title race in a simple mathematical state: if Arsenal win their remaining two Premier League fixtures, they will end the season as champions with 85 points. The draft notes that 85 points would have been sufficient last season, when Liverpool took the crown with 84. It also recalls the last time champions finished on so few points: Leicester City in 2015\u201316 with 81, an anomaly only exceeded by Manchester United\u2019s 80 in 2010\u201311.<\/p>\n
Silva did not avoid addressing City\u2019s dip in form. The recent 3\u20133 draw with Everton is highlighted as the result that took the title race out of City\u2019s hands and as one example among others of disappointing displays this campaign. Supporters have been vocal that the season has lacked quality, a view the player acknowledged while casting an eye back over his own side\u2019s campaign.<\/p>\n
\u201cI also believe\u2014and I know this is very subjective\u2014that if we were not in a transitional season and if we didn\u2019t make so many mistakes, we would have won this league,\u201d he stressed. Silva\u2019s comments frame a closing run-in in which Arsenal could yet capitalise and where City must account for missed opportunities.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Bernardo Silva told The Athletic Arsenal must ‘man up’ while reflecting on City’s mistakes. Update.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":13828,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[192,238,969],"tags":[1505,1081,988],"class_list":["post-13829","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-arsenal","category-manchester-city","category-premier-league","tag-accountability","tag-adaptation","tag-bernardo-silva"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13829","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13829"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13829\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13828"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13829"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13829"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13829"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}