Marco Silva's Premier League Success A Long Time In The Making

The coaching landscape of the Premier League is changing, as one of its pillars, Arsene Wenger, starts to shake to a greater degree than at any other time in the past two decades.

As Arsenal’s longstanding boss suffers a difficult end to a turbulent season in London, it is ironic that one of the few coaches in the Premier League to have a thorough understanding of the old-fashioned manager's role that Wenger occupies is one whose arrival so infuriated one of the Gunners' more illustrious former players.

Paul Merson's infamous rant ridiculing Marco Silva's coaching credentials and Hull City's decision to employ him seemed unreasonable at the time; now, it attracts repeated reference as a snapshot in time. That's not just to chide Merson for his parochial views but to acknowledge a time when Silva was a left-field choice and a largely unknown quantity. It's easy to laugh at the footage of Merson but harder to admit he simply gave animation to many onlookers' sense of bemusement at Hull's choice.

Silva may not have been a household name, but he certainly wasn't an unknown behind the scenes of many Premier League clubs. His work at Estoril over three spectacular seasons got tongues wagging around the continental circuit, and by the time Silva was leading the club to an unprecedented fourth-place finish in his final campaign at the club, 2013-14, curious English clubs had sent emissaries to take a closer look at the coach's methods.

Estoril, the penultimate stop on the Cais do Sodre to Cascais train line that leads from the centre of Lisbon to the city's satellite beach resorts, is home to Europe's biggest casino so is probably the right place for a big gamble. That is arguably what Silva's appointment at Estoril was. Rather than being part of a grand plan, the recently-retired right-back had just become the club's sporting director in 2011 when, four months into his tenure, Vinicius Eutropio was removed as coach and Silva was called on to replace him.

What Silva lacked in experience, he had in terms of respect. He played for the club for six years and, as a senior figure, had been a calming influence when there was uncertainty behind the scenes after new owner Traffic—a Brazilian sports-event management agency—took the reins. This uncommon path also gave him a strong grasp of how a club is run from top to bottom. So unlike many modern coaches, he will know the challenges that Wenger, the last of the old-style managers, faces.

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Since then, he has made his ability speak for him rather than relying on familiarity. His three-year, 40-match unbeaten home league record over spells with four clubs has been frequently—and justifiably—celebrated in recent weeks and carries a soupcon of Jose Mourinho about it, even if it is way short of the Special One's streak without a home defeat, which stretched over 151 games and nine years before coming to a halt in 2011.

There's another big difference between the two sequences beside the length. Mourinho's unbeaten games were spread over periods in charge of FC Porto, Chelsea, Inter Milan and Real Madrid. Silva's started at Estoril and continued at Sporting Clube de Portugal, Olympiakos (where, admittedly, invincibility is expected) and Hull. There is simultaneously a good framework for comparison and no basis for it at all.

To pick the moment when Silva started to break into a greater realm of recognition in Portugal, it's worth going back to the closure of another great home unbeaten run—that of Porto, who had gone five years and four months without defeat at Estadio do Dragao. Then, in February 2014, Silva's Estoril visited.

Evandro, the Brazilian midfielder who was one of Silva's key men on the Lisbon coast before later becoming an early signing for him on his arrival at the KCOM Stadium, won and then scored the penalty that gave his team a 1-0 win.

By then, Portuguese football already knew it had something special on its hands. Silva's rise to that point, in 2014, had already been stratospheric. He took over Estoril when they were in lower mid-table in the second tier in October 2011, but they finished the season as champions. In their first campaign in the top flight, they finished fifth and qualified for Europe. That famous win at the Dragao, on their way to finishing fourth after losing a clutch of key players, underlined exactly what made him unique.

"This Sunday wasn't Marco Silva's greatest achievement," wrote Luis Sobral for Maisfutebol after the game. "His fundamental success was having convinced his players, whoever they are, that it's possible to take on any opponent, anywhere, and to win."

That, in a context where Os Tres Grandes of Porto, Benfica and Sporting are so rarely meaningfully challenged, meant a lot.

The route his career has taken since is not what Silva would have planned, but plenty of merit has been gleaned along the way. Even though Sporting removed him from his post after just one season, it was no real condemnation of his work but more a reflection of his relationship with the club's high-profile president, Bruno de Carvalho, having broken down.

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Despite finishing third, Silva's Sporting lost only twice in the Primeira Liga all season (incidentally beating the points total with which Sporting last won the title in 2001/02), won the Taca de Portugal for a first trophy in seven years and came close to reaching the knockout phase of the Champions League in a group that contained Chelsea.

His continuing value was clear, even to De Carvalho. As Observador reported at the time, Silva's €2 million payoff was contingent on the agreement of a clause that prevented him from coaching in Portugal again for the next three seasons. Sporting and their president had no intention of letting him come back to haunt them.

Silva's year at Olympiacos, inevitably ending in a title, was a quick route back into work and saw records fall, as recounted by Record, with 17 straight wins to start the season and only five points dropped in the entire campaign. There was also the memorable Champions League victory over Arsenal at the Emirates Stadium.

Still, his spell at Estoril remains essential in understanding what Silva is about, where he's come from and how he built himself into a Premier League coach of note. His ability to pick up an unpromising situation and make a quick impression has been vital to Hull. Though his experience is greater now, it's clear he has strongly adhered to his early methods, particularly in his work with his players.

"He had a detailed project that he aimed to carry out," said Estoril midfielder Diogo Amado, shortly after Silva's exit for Sporting in an interview with Record. "We knew exactly he wanted. It was never even necessary to explain the tactics because we knew. I always go back to the closeness he has with the players. He doesn't put up barriers between the coach and the players, and we knew we could count on him."

From the recent words of Hull defender Harry Maguire on Football Focus, his current squad feel much the same.

"Marco Silva has already shown that he's capable of building, maintaining and then rebuilding," Sobral wrote after Estoril's win at Porto in 2014. "One of these days, he'll have a new challenge—because he has the quality for it."

Those words appear as relevant as ever today, though Hull will hope they can hold on to the Premier League's coaching revelation of the season for just a little longer.