- Silva does not like the guard of honour tradition
- Refused to perform gesture against Liverpool
- Also admits he’s a really "bad loser"
The Portugal international famously decided not to applaud Liverpool’s title-winning players onto the pitch back in 2020 at the Etihad Stadium. Silva has now opened up on his decision to snub the Reds and says he thinks the guard of honour is a “kind of hypocrisy”.
He told The Times: “I’m a bad loser, yeah. I hate losing. I played 12 years at Benfica and they taught us not to be happy if you lose.
“In my opinion, it’s kind of a hypocrisy [the guard of honour],” Silva says. “It’s not a tradition we have in Portugal. If they want to do it, they can do it, but I wasn’t going to clap Liverpool because that’s not how I celebrate defeat. When I win a title, I don’t need anyone else to clap for me.”
The guard of honour is a tradition usually given to league or cup winners and is a gesture that often divides opinion. Arsenal opted to give a guard of honour to Liverpool at the end of last season when they faced the Reds at Anfield but did come in for plenty of criticism from fans.
Silva also said that the Manchester City players feel guilty for last season’s performance and failure to challenge for the title, adding: “There’s a lot of guilt among the players, in the manager, in everyone for not doing better last season. A team with our experience, with our quality, even with [the injuries we had], we cannot go down as easily as we did. We should have done better to overcome this situation. About competing for the title, we didn’t even give it a try.”
Bernardo and Manchester City will be hoping they can mount a title challenge in 2025-26 after strengthening the squad by bringing in players such as Rayan Ait-Nouri, Rayan Cherki and Tijjani Reijnders. The Cityzens kick off their Premier League season against Wolves on Saturday at Molineux.
