Can Bernado Silva replace Ozil? By SK
In case Mesut Ozil fails to sign a new contract with Arsenal, who would replace him? We can’t start another season with only Cazorla being the creative midfielder we have at the club. There are lots of players Arsenal fans will love to see come to us but one player I hope we will consider to play for us next season is 22 years old Bernado Silva of Monaco.
A product of Benfica’s youth system, Silva played for its ranks and in 2013 won the 2012–13 Portuguese Juniors Championship. He made his professional debut in the first match of the 2013–14 season, against Trofense. On 19 October 2013, Silva made his debut for Benfica at the age of 19, in a Taça de Portugal 1–0 victory against lower league Cinfães, coming out of the bench in the 80th minute. His performances in his debut season earned him the Segunda Liga Breakthrough Player of the Year. He was part of the club’s domestic treble in the 2013–14 season.
Silva joined Monaco in 2014 and since then, he has appeared for Monaco 89 times, scoring 22 goals in the process! He is a multi-talented midfielder whose dribbling skills can only be compared to Messi’s. He also has a good record playing for the Portuguese national team.
In 2013, he represented Portugal at the 2013 UEFA European Under-19 Football Championship, reaching the semi-finals. For his performances, Silva was named among the top 10 talents under the age of 19 in Europe by a selection of UEFA reporters. On 31 March 2015 he made his senior debut for Portugal, starting in a 0–2 friendly defeat to Cape Verde in Estoril. On 27 June 2015, he scored Portugal U21’s first goal in a 5–0 win against Germany U21 in the semi-finals of the UEFA European Under-21 Championship in Czech Republic.
Silva is still 22 years old but he has first team experience; he has featured regularly this season for the Monaca first team, he has played in almost all their UEFA champions league games since joining them. Just last week against Manchester City, he stood out, despite his team losing that night. His dribbling skills that night troubled the likes of Toure and others. We need such a highly creative midfielder in our team.
As expected, Silva is wanted by a host of big clubs; Man United are rumoured to have agreed a 70 million pounds deal with Monaco for him, while Chelsea are reportedly interested in snapping him up this season but nothing is concrete as of now! We can still get him if we want because he is still a Monaco player as you are reading this.
Mesut Ozil may decide to renew his contract or not, but whatever happens, we still need to snap up this young talent as he will be a great investment right now and an asset to us on the long run.
I am just happy imagining how our midfield will look like next season with Xhaka, Silva and probably Cazorla!
Sylvester Kwentua