David Silva Clearly Taking the Cristiano Ronaldo Route of Playing Down Rumors

By: Taylor Rockwell | September 17th, 2009

The Daily Mirror is reporting that Valencia star David Silva hasn’t exactly quashed rumors linking him with Old Trafford. The young Spanish attacker went about the usual business of saying a lot without actually saying anything. “It’s an honor for any player that a club of the prestige of Manchester United should follow them and that in itself is enormous praise,” said Silva. “I am committed to Valencia and my dream is to win the title but in the future anything is possible. Valencia have rejected offers for me in the past few months and I am happy here. But I also know that the Premier League is a big competition and hard to resist.”

Sound familiar? It should, because it’s pretty much taken line for line from the Cristiano Ronaldo lexicon of downplaying rumors. For example, here’s Ronaldo during a May 26th interview ahead of the Champion’s League Final with Barcelona: “But my head is in Manchester because it is the club that, at the moment, puts me in the best condition and that I’m happy at. Now, as I have said many times, only God knows the future. I have never hid from anyone that I would like to play in Spain one day. It’s a dream, but sometimes dreams don’t happen.”

I’m going to go ahead and call these kinds of statements the “football transfer hedge”. Essentially, the player wants the move, but doesn’t want to anger his fans by outright declaring that he wants to leave. I think it’s still about a notch below putting yourself up for sale in an Amsterdam window in terms of subtlety, but at least he didn’t go the Ribery route.

All that said, Silva is one of the few players that I would love to see United break the bank for. He’s a young, exciting attacker who could fit in well at Old Trafford. I don’t think this will happen anytime soon obviously, but after a summer spent feeling like the ugly girlfriend, I’ll take any bits of news that link us to a prominent player.