Bernardo Silva takes aim at football chiefs and BLASTS fixture schedule

An exhausted Bernardo Silva blasted scheduling that left Manchester City with 66 hours between a Champions League victory and daunting trip to Arsenal.

City had beaten Kevin De Bruyne’s Napoli on Thursday night but had two days fewer to prepare than Mikel Arteta’s side for their 1-1 draw down in the capital.

Silva branded that unfair and believes more should have been done between the Premier League and UEFA to facilitate extra recovery – suggesting that the calibre of match ought to play a part in the decision-making process.

And strikingly, the City captain insisted that Sunday as a spectacle – in which Pep Guardiola’s team operated in a far more defensive shape than normal – was a bad day for the game at the highest level.

‘We cannot come to one of the most important games in the season with such a disadvantage in terms of rest,’ Silva said. ‘It is not fair to play one of these games like this. It is just not right.

‘They had five days [of rest], and we had two-and-a-half days. In one of the most important games, this cannot happen. I don’t think what happened [on Sunday] was good.

‘I understand you have different competitions and UEFA, the Premier League, and the broadcasters want to make their money. I understand all those sorts of things.

‘We don’t mind playing every three or four days, and we don’t mind playing 60 games because we are used to that. But what we ask for is common sense because this is one of the biggest games of the season.

‘And it is not because of us. I don’t think that they are trying to make us lose a game. It could happen to Arsenal or Liverpool in a few months.

‘But when you are playing an Arsenal vs City or a City vs Liverpool or Liverpool vs Arsenal, you need to have a bit of common sense and understanding of these situations and in such an important game, the players need to be in the same physical conditions otherwise I don’t think it is fair.

‘We can lose any game in good conditions or bad conditions, but we need the respect and the common sense to be at the same level to compete.’

Silva insisted that he never felt up to speed with the intensity of the occasion from the first whistle and suggested that was a major factor in Guardiola’s defensive tactical outlook.

The Portuguese also claimed that complaints made by captains to the relevant authorities have fallen on deaf ears.

‘We have tried [talking], they don’t listen to us,’ he added. ‘It is what it is. We would like to change something. But it never changes.

‘I wasn’t feeling in a perfect condition to play. We showed a lot of fight in difficult conditions. I am saying this because we didn’t lose. If we lost, I wouldn’t say this.

‘I felt the difference [even] in the first half. If you play at the highest level you know that two days playing against one of the best teams in the league, away, with the travel, you need at least one more day to recover.

‘It doesn’t matter if Arsenal had four, five or six days, just give us one more day, and that gives us three-and-a-half days, and then you make it an even game. Two-and-a-half-days is not enough to recover our bodies and to perform at the highest level. It is just not enough.’