Where will David Silva play?

What about the actual football, then; where will David Silva play, and how? Fortunately he adopts different roles for club and country, which should present us with some options.

He is best known to English fans for his role in Euro 2008, where he played on the left of a four-man midfield. He is left-footed, but don't expect him to be Martin Petrov. He's less quick, he's less direct but a lot more imaginative. Quite a few Premier League players deploy a creative player from the left, such as Steven Pienaar or Niko Kranjčar. We don't necessarily need to do this, because we do have the option of Adam Johnson, who could be an heir to Martin Petrov but might be something else entirely. I imagine this will be our most common arrangement, largely because of Mancini's enthusiasm for two strikers.

Should he decide against two up front, we have the option of playing a variant of 4-5-1, with David Silva in a central role. This is how he plays for Valencia, as since Juan Mata has arrived to play on the left, Silva has moved into a freer role behind David Villa. This brings the most out of his movement between the lines, his imagination and creativity. This is particularly likely to be deployed in European games if Mancini feels as if we need an extra man in midfield. One final option is to play with a lone striker but to push Silva wide, allowing three more cautious central midfielders. Silva did this for Spain against Switzerland but it didn't really work. He's better drifting inside.