For a true test of a footballer, you don’t send him into a comfortable situation where everything’s going great and all he has to do is play. No, you send him into a situation which is volatile, where things go wrong at every turn. That’s what Arsene Wenger did to Wellington Silva when he sent him to Bolton Wanderers, the definition of a crisis club. But has he proven himself a worthy man there?
He’s very much an Arsenal player. In the sense that he spends just as much time with the physio as he does on the pitch. Silva missed a lot of pre-season and a huge chunk of the season itself thanks to hamstring problems, meaning at times he has struggled to keep up with the pace of the Championship. His manager Neil Lennon called him out on his fitness, Silva then vowing to improve.
His physicality has been an issue. The Brazilian is only 5″7, so it isn’t expected that he’s going to batter around defenders, but the big guys have been able to bully him out of games, which has been a big problem for the Arsenal loanee.
This means that in some games, he’s just a complete non-entity. That’s a big problem for a team that needs every last bit of fight that their players have to offer. When Neil Lennon has dropped you for not being good enough when the entire team has been poor, you know something has gone wrong.
But, there is something a bit special about him. When Silva is on form, he is a force to be reckoned with. He is probably the overall most talented player in Bolton’s squad and came close to beating promotion chasing Sheffield Wednesday on his own, with their defenders simply unable to handle the plethora of talent he possesses. He has pace, he has trickery and when it all comes together, there aren’t many who can handle the 23-year-old winger.
But that isn’t happening enough. Right now, Lennon utilises him more as a flair player who he can bring on at the end in an attempt to liven up a game, when Silva really should have a team built around him. Aged 23, he hasn’t really done enough to show he should be staying at Arsenal for much longer. Although Wenger, notoriously patient with his players, might just give him the time he needs to develop into a top, top talent.
