Bernardo Silva has got fans talking as he gave Liverpool an unusual piece of praise while taking aim at Arsenal, following their 2-2 draw against Man City.
Silva is not a liked man among Liverpool supporters, but many found themselves agreeing with his latest comments regarding the Reds’ difference in mentality to Arsenal.
Over the last few years, games between Man City and Liverpool have been events for every football fan to tune into as they have served up goals, end-to-end football and sport of the highest quality.
When Man City play Arsenal, though, the Gunners are often happy to sit back and defend their points – though this was perhaps understandable while playing with 10 men on Sunday.
After the teams’ 2-2 draw at the weekend, in which Arsenal had just 12.5 percent of possession in the second half, Silva was asked about the difference between Liverpool and Mikel Arteta’s side.
“The difference? I don’t know,” he replied to media including TNT Sports.
“Maybe that Liverpool have already won the Premier League, Arsenal haven’t. That Liverpool have won the Champions League, Arsenal haven’t.
“Liverpool always faced us face-to-face, to try to win the games, so from this perspective the games against Arsenal haven’t been like the ones we had and have against Liverpool. So yes, maybe a different rivalry.”
As mentioned above, playing at the Etihad with 10 men was always going to be a difficult task, but Arsenal have had a similar mentality in previous encounters.
Take their jubilant celebrations after their 0-0 draw in March, for example. In addition, some of the statistics to emerge from this weekend’s match were astounding.
Kai Havertz and Jurrien Timber failed to complete a single pass against Man City despite playing over 89 minutes each. BBC Sport reported they’re the first players to play 89 or more minutes of a Premier League match and not successfully pass to a teammate since records began!
Silva continued: “There was only one team that came to play football.
“The other came to play to the limits of what was possible to do and allowed by the referee, unfortunately. But at the end we got a draw, the best we could get considering the context of the last moments of the match.
“We’re not happy as we wanted the three points, but personally I’m happy with the way we came to play and faced the game. I’m glad we always enter the pitch to try to win every match. It all started in the very first second.”
The Portuguese was also not happy with goalkeeper David Raya’s time-wasting antics, for which he received no punishment.
“Then the referee allowed a sequence of time-wasting events,” Silva added.
“The thing that bothers me the most is having a lot of meetings with the FA at the beginning of each season. They tell us they will control this kind of situation and will stop them, but in the end it doesn’t have any worth.
“They say a lot but nothing happens.”
