Given that they were missing their best defender, defensive midfielder, attacking midfielder and had their only other fit striker taken off I'm not sure you can say the lack of David Silva caused a tight 1-0 loss, iirc he was involved in their loss to Chelsea, their draw with West Brom and their loss to Napoli also (although I think I remember him looking good in the latter).
A few technical notes as you said you don't mind CC. I'm going to be honest and try and hold you to a fairly high standard here so if the blog is just a casual one, feel free to tell me to take my wall of text and **** off. If it's to help you train up your writing skills or to act as part of a portfolio in any job application you make (I swear every interview I have ever been to for journalism jobs ask me if I have a blog, regardless of whether or not I have professional experience in that field) then I think this might help you.
1) When quoting from the Guardian (or any other paper really), don't use journalists as if they were critics in an essay, aka as if their word holds a degree of expertise and authority. Analysis from Paul Hayward (who you use to start your article) is generally terribly limited and based more on hype and perceived contribution than anything else.
2) Whilst we're on the theme on essays, consider what that paragraph containing the link to Hayward actually does for your article.
PaulHayward describes Silva as having “transformedRoberto Mancini’s team from powerful to pretty, from mechanical tosometimes majestic.” Whenlooking at Silva’s sensational performance against Villarreal SidLowe wrote: “Herewas an intelligent, alert footballer who displayed both urgency andtranquility, a complete playmaker.
This does follow on from your opening and on a base level it works as a sort of contextualisation. The problem is that you don't really engage with them at all, you just use them to say what you want to say but with the backing of a professionals voice. Borrowing credibility like this is fine in certain circumstances but in this case, using it so early and without your own interpretation diminishes the authority of your own voice. The implication is that your word isn't sufficient, an implication that then lingers a little in the mind as we read the rest of the article. As long as you are able to substantiate your argument you shouldn't feel shy about asserting yourself: the thing that will you the edge over the next anorak waiting to dissect a game is your personality, I should be able to feel your voice and personality in the core of what you're saying.
As I mentioned before, you also lack your own interpretation of the quotes, something which again diminishes your own voice. Pick a hole, make a comment, anything as long as you make it clear that you're not just a mindless drone extracting facts and articles and reconfiguring them into an article. Yes Silva was fantastic against Villareal but the Yellow Submarines has been sinking all year, so mention that it's not too hard for a bright playmaker to rip a team to shreds if the team in question has been lacking form and confidence all year.
3) The next sentence - "
Themost similar player to David Silva in the Manchester City squad isSamir Nasri and so I will be comparing the two throughout"- is a complete non sequitar: where's the flow? Off the top of my head something like "Silva's silky skills are hard to replicate but City have another potent playmaker in their ranks in the form of Samir Nasri. The two players share some striking similarities such as X and Y so I will compare them throughout this article to try and understand why Nasri has been unable to fill the creative void." That's not great but it's a bit smoother; see Barney Ronay's (or Dan Jones in the Standard) incredible popularity on the usually critical Guardian football section to understand the importance that good writing plays in every discipline of journalism.
4) I personally don't give two monkey's nuts about this but you will find a lot of editors and readers do: don't start sentences with a
conjunction!
5) A little rejigging would help you keep the flow. In the "Killer Pass" section, you talk about City's passing style, then some of Nasri and Silva's passing stats, then some more talk about City's passing style with a nice graph, then the two players killer pass ratio. I get what you were trying to do- two lots of look at general stat, compare with player- but it doesn't quite fit together. You can
6) The premise is either a little too broad or your analysis a little too short. I'm not sure you can really determine whether or not City are a one man team purely from comparing the passing (and briefly shooting) statistics of two players.
7) You don't really follow that golden rule of life PEE- Point, Example, Explanation. Collecting the stats and comparing them is great but you have to actually do the grunt work and analyse them for your reader. So Silva has a higher shot per game and goal rate than Nasri, what does that tell me? Silva completes more dribbles, ok what does that tell me about his contribution to City. Individually those quotes tell me nothing, they need to be contextualised.
8) Keep on going, I always enjoy reading what you guys write. ^^)
we won't concede as many goals XD.
we share the same surname as well and I am a keeper!