There are a lot of things that a footballer can do that piss me off. One of the worst things is to do nothing. I hate it when a player goes out onto the pitch and is just invisible. As some of you may know, I am a Tottenham fan in addition to Borussia Dortmund, and this is how I feel about roughly 75% of the current Spurs squad. So I am very familiar with this sentiment.
However, there’s one player on Borussia Dortmund who, everything else aside, is always doing something, and that’s Fabio Silva.
Man, I love Fabio Silva. Niko Kovac can play him anywhere, either on the wing, as a false nine, as the lone striker, or in a pair with Serhou Guirassy.
In only 334 minutes in the Bundesliga so far, Silva has five goal involvements, including some major clutch moments, such as his game-tying goal against Bayern Munich:
His playmaking and goalscoring are solid, but so is everything else. He presses relentlessly, he’s solid dropping deep in the buildup, he has the pace to stretch the opposition back line, and his holdup play is really solid. Look at the work he does on this play, bringing down a long-ball from Veerman and protecting it before eventually setting up Felix Nmecha for a goal:
Having a player who can make something out of a ball like that is so valuable.
Silva seemed unhappy in his limited role in Dortmund last season. While he still hasn’t had a ton of minutes this season, he should hopefully have a larger role to play as the season moves on. I haven’t seen any news on Serhou Guirassy’s injury, but it’s possible that he is sidelined a little while longer. I hope Silva uses this opportunity to prove himself so that Niko Kovac rewards him with more minutes. He definitely deserves it.
