Betway sat down and talked to former Manchester United and Arsenal defender Mikael Silvestre looks at the art of defending and how it’s changed in today’s modern game compared to when the French man was playing in the Premier League
“If you switch off, you’re done,” says Mikael Silvestre. “You can’t rest like strikers or midfielders can.”
The French man Silvestre is now 44 years of age and knows what he is talking about, having won the Premier League with Manchester United four times between 2000 and 2007.
The impact a good defender has on a team can not be underrated ‘defence wins titles’ as Sir Alex Ferguson famously once said and how true that is. Manchester City, Premier League Champions 2020/21 who was their player of the year and Premier League players player of the year Portugal’s Ruben Dias.
Liverpool won the Premier League the year before that and who was their play of the year and Premier League players of the year? Only the big Dutch man Virgil van Dijk. The game might have changed and things like sticking your head where it hurts, putting your body on the line, might have been lost along the way. But you still need a strong defence and leaders to pull it all together.
If you look at all the greats teams a lot of them always a strong spine to their team, Chelsea Champions League winners in 2012, you had Cech, Terry, Lampard and Drogba. Liverpool in 2018/19 you had Alisson, van Dijk, Henderson, Salah. It’s the defence that the teams are built on and after that everything seems to fall into place.
“Now you don’t have to be as good defensively, but if you don’t have that quality on the ball then you probably wouldn’t get into a top team.” said former Arsenal left back Nigel Winterburn
Has the game changed for the better? It’s definitely faster and you have to be a lot sharper, this is an obvious effect of the game being far more global and cultures and different influences making their way into leagues that they never were before. Case in Point Pep Guardiola in the Premier League with Manchester City, you wonder where the game will go next and how high and high can the standards in the game keep rising?
One thing is for sure, defenders have to be a lot better on the ball now a days more then they ever were.