SILVA: OUR BEST IS YET TO COME
Chetan Sharma of India claimed the first hat-trick in the cricket World Cup when he dismissed three New Zealand batsmen at Nagpur.
2002: Sven Goran Eriksson pledged to stay on as England manager in the wake of Football Association chief executive Adam Crozier’s resignation. 2005: Hearts owner Vladimir Romanov dismissed chairman George Foulkes and chief executive Phil Anderton and put his son Roman in charge of the Scottish club.
2007: Ronald Koeman left PSV Eindhoven to become Valencia boss. 2017: Sunderland sacked manager Simon Grayson after a 3-3 draw at home to Bolton. BERNARDO SILVA has warned the Premier League’s resurgent superpowers – the best is yet to come from Manchester City.
The champions added Tottenham to their list of scalps on Monday night with Riyad Mahrez’s early strike sending them back to the top of the table (Silva tangles with Mousa Dembele, below).
No team has retained the Premier League title since Manchester United in the 2008-9 season. And Silva believes the experience of last season’s triumph will assist City’s settled squad in attempting to end that run.
“It helps a lot,” he said. “The team has a lot of confidence and we know what we are capable of.
“We know we can still improve a lot. The beginning of the season is very good for us, even though we have the same number of points as Liverpool and other teams are close. But it is what it is.
“We have to keep staying concentrated to build a gap away from those teams.
“Chelsea and Liverpool are very strong, Arsenal as well, even Tottenham despite them losing this game.
“They are still contenders. It will be harder because last season nobody was expecting us to win so many games and reach that level of points.
“This season, teams know they have to do better to beat us. It will probably be very hard, but we will work every game to get three points and try to celebrate one more Premier League title.”
Silva believes City, who tomorrow host Fulham in the EFL Cup before entertaining Southampton in the league on Sunday, made a statement by seeing off Spurs on a horrendous pitch at Wembley (above).
“Everybody knows how difficult it is to play at Wembley against one of the best sides in England on a pitch like that,” he said. “We were playing against not only a very good technical team, but also they are a strong team physically.
“It was a big win for us. It’s important to win these games – to draw at Anfield, to win at the Emirates and then at Wembley.
“They then have to come and play at the Etihad, which is a bit better for us in front of our own fans.
“Anything can happen. But we need to have the ambition of winning every game.”