Fortunately, although David Silva is very strong at the moment, he is not yet in his prime, so as long as Southampton goes all out, they still have a chance to defend against David Silva.

Under Mancini, David Silva was just an inward-cutting winger with good skills and creativity. It was not until Guardiola coached Manchester City that David Silva's midfield master attributes were fully activated.

Therefore, Southampton can indeed be secretly thankful that they have met David Silva now.

Manchester City's starting right winger is No. 7 player James Milner.

At this time, Milner was just 25 years old and could only be regarded as a first-line rotation substitute player in Manchester City. He came from Leeds United's football youth training. In 2002, Milner was promoted from Leeds United's youth team to Leeds United's first team. He then joined Newcastle United and Aston Villa. Until August 2010, Milner transferred to Manchester City with the title of England's best young player.

But his career peak was not at Manchester City under Mancini, but after he moved to Liverpool after 2015.

Milner is the kind of player whose early stats look average, but gets better as he gets older.

He is a versatile midfielder who can play almost any position in the midfield or frontcourt. Moreover, he has an extremely serious and passionate attitude towards the game and will never give up until the last moment.

The reason Milner started this time was actually because head coach Mancini did not want to send all the main players.

If the opponent was not Southampton, Milner would not have the chance to start, because the right winger position is the position with the highest offensive weight for Manchester City, and the starting player for this position should have been - Manchester City's most valuable superstar, the South American Footballer of the Year for three consecutive years, the Argentine Footballer of the Year twice, the championship harvester, Tevez - Carlos Tevez.

Tevez is 27 years old this year, which is the peak of his career.

In 2007, 2008 and 2009, the Red Devils trident of Tevez, Rooney and Ronaldo was the era when Manchester United was closest to the devil.

That is truly invincible and unbeatable!

Tevez just won the Premier League Golden Boot Award for top scorer at Manchester United last year. He was so excited that tears filled his eyes when he gave his acceptance speech. He vowed to play for Manchester United for the rest of his life. Then he turned around and accepted Manchester City's high offer, claiming that playing for Manchester City was his dream.

Tevez is now in his element in Manchester City, and is able to call the shots.

He joined Manchester City with the highest fee and highest weekly salary, and as soon as he arrived at Manchester City, he was given the captain's armband by head coach Mancini.

This is much higher than the salary at Manchester United.

Tevez was so moved that he almost cried, and vowed to play well for Manchester City and kill Manchester United for replacing him with "cool brother" Berbatov.

As a result, within less than a year, Tevez, who was earning a high salary, had fallen into a serious decline in form. Not only did he often drink until dawn, he also frequently missed team training.

As Manchester City's captain, missing training is absolutely intolerable at the club.

The captain should be a role model for the team, but Tevez's performance, which is a common problem among South American players, made the emotional head coach Mancini unceremoniously deprive him of his captaincy, promote the more self-disciplined Kompany as captain, and put Tevez on the bench for consecutive days.

As a result, in the 2011 Champions League, Manchester City's offensive was blocked and Mancini was eager to replace Tevez, but Tevez sat firmly on the bench, smiled contemptuously, and refused to play as a substitute.

Mancini was furious and announced at the post-match press conference that he would never use rubbish players like Tevez again.

This is the famous Tevez strike.

Of course, Tevez later accepted the heavy punishment and apologized to Mancini. Mancini also forgave Tevez on the surface, but Tevez's status in the team plummeted. He had few opportunities to play and could only passively fulfill his expensive contract. Finally, in 2013, he transferred to Juventus for 12 million euros and put on the No. 10 jersey left by Del Piero.

After a long suspension period at Manchester City, Tevez has experienced a second spring in his career in Serie A.

But it is undeniable that the Manchester City period should have been Tevez's peak period, but he wasted the most important three years. Otherwise, his achievements would definitely be much higher than they are now.

In 2016, Tevez transferred from Boca to Shenhua for 11 million euros and set a world record weekly salary of 615,000 pounds, which is much higher than the weekly salary of Messi and Ronaldo in the same period.

Throughout 2017, Tevez hardly played football for Shenhua. Apart from starting in the first few rounds, he spent most of the time recovering from injuries. On the game days when he was recovering from his injury, he took his family to Disneyland. Before the Shenhua FA Cup match, he even took his family back to Argentina for vacation. His reason for asking for leave was that he was homesick.

Therefore, Tevez was later affectionately called "Tevez" by domestic fans.

It can be said that Tevez is a player with no professional ethics, but at the same time he is also a player with the capital to be arrogant.

He has won almost every championship award he can get.

Of course, in today's game, Tevez and Mancini were still in their honeymoon period. Mancini also explained to Tevez that letting him sit on the bench in this game was just to give him a rest, and there was no need for him to play against Southampton.

Therefore, Tevez was very relaxed. He sat on the bench and chatted and laughed with his teammates, not taking the game seriously at all.

No. 18 Gareth Barry, now 29 years old, is a veteran who has been selected for the England national team 43 times and has scored 2 goals. He is 183cm tall and weighs 79kg. He is a very rare left-footed player who can not only play as a midfielder and defensive midfielder, but also as a left midfielder and left wingback.

If Milner is the iron man of the Premier League team, then Gareth Barry is the evergreen of the Premier League.

Gareth Barry has made 653 appearances in the Premier League, making him the undisputed appearance king and the all-attendance king.

At the age of 26, Gareth Barry was already the youngest player in the Premier League to make 300+ appearances, and the only other player who was surpassed by him was Lampard.

When Gareth Barry reached 35, he was named Everton's best player, and his competitive form was no different from that of a 28-year-old.

At the age of 37, Barry had the opportunity to continue to expand his number of appearances in the Premier League, but Barry finally decided to go down to the Championship with his club West Bromwich.

Gareth Barry played until 2020 and officially retired at the age of 39.

Bale, who also goes by the name "Gareth", retired at the age of 32 while playing golf. Although Gareth Barry is far inferior to Bale in fame and strength, Gareth Barry has also made his name in history by virtue of his title of the Premier League's first appearance king.

It is particularly worth mentioning that Gareth Barry not only has the most appearances in the Premier League, but also has the most cards in the Premier League, with a total of 117 yellow cards.

Of course, this also has a lot to do with his role as a defensive midfielder. He has plenty of physical energy and is very aggressive. He is an engineer-type sweeping defensive midfielder.

Another midfielder, No. 14 Arturo Vidal, is even more famous.

Arturo Vidal is only 23 years old now, and he hasn't grown his unique cockscomb hair yet.

Vidal's contract is with Leverkusen in the Bundesliga, but this season, Vidal was briefly loaned to Manchester City for three months. If his performance is satisfactory in the three months, Manchester City will buy him out at a high price. Within these three months, Vidal can be recalled by Leverkusen at any time.

So, Vidal did play for Manchester City, but Vidal was never a formal player of Manchester City.

As a typical South American player, Bildad is known as an iron waist. He is strong, aggressive, tough in style of play and has comprehensive skills. However, his only shortcoming is his hot temper and he cannot control himself once there is a spark.

Vidal does not have many opportunities to play for Manchester City because the more suitable candidate for his position is the Dutchman Nigel de Jong.

As an international player of the Netherlands, Nigel de Jong has always been known as a man with a beastly waist and a bad guy.

De Jong in the south and Pepe in the north, that's not just a joke.

De Jong's famous kick to the heart of Spanish star Alonso at the 2010 World Cup has become his signature move.

Even the referee was afraid of De Jong's ferocity. After De Jong kicked Alonso, the referee did not dare to give De Jong a red card, as if he was afraid that De Jong would kick him with a fatal kick.

Vidal is still not as ferocious as De Jong.

But Vidal's overall strength is indeed stronger than De Jong. De Jong basically just wants to disable the player and after that he doesn't care where the ball is, while Vidal can still steal the ball and pass the ball.

Now, De Jong is sitting on the bench watching the game with a grim face.

Manchester City’s starting defensive midfielder is No. 42 “Ya Ya”, Yaya Toure.

Yaya Toure is undoubtedly a world-class player and the world's top B2B midfielder.

Yaya Toure is in very good physical condition. He runs a great distance on the field and makes a lot of sprints. He often charges from his own penalty area to the opposing penalty area. He is the type of player who can't stop running. After playing 90 minutes of the game, he will have no problem playing another 90 minutes.

Yaya Toure's career did not start high (but higher than his brother's). He first studied in the youth training camp of ASEC Mimosa in Côte d'Ivoire. In 2001, he joined the Belgian Beveren Football Club to start his official professional career. After that, he played for Metalurh Donetsk, Olympiacos and Monaco until 2007, when he was spotted by a scout from Barcelona.

In 2009, Yaya Toure, who came from a low-end team, has achieved a major reversal in his life. His value has skyrocketed thousands of times and he helped Barcelona win the six-time championship.

In 2010, Yaya Toure was invited by his brother Kolo Toure, who was the captain of Manchester City at the time, to transfer from Barcelona to the wealthy Manchester City for 27.5 million pounds. In Manchester City's subsequent games, he firmly occupied the position of defensive midfielder and became a legendary star of Manchester City.

It is no exaggeration to say that Yaya Toure is the representative figure of B2B.

Manchester City's midfield combination today was also very ferocious, and today's game was destined to be a super tough physical confrontation game.

...(End of this chapter)