Hernandez suddenly has an entire coaching staff who speak a mutually intelligible language to his own - that surely can only be a positive for him and perhaps will bring the best out of him in training and on match days. While the home boys are in familiar surroundings and hear the sounds of English all day, the impact of having a familiar language, albeit at management level, must surely bring a bit of a homey dimension for our sole latin player.
I quote a native Spanish speaker, Diego Planas Rego: "Portuguese speakers can understand spoken Spanish pretty well. Spanish speakers can't understand spoken Portuguese that much - but we can understand written Portuguese knowing a few key words. The reason for this (I believe) is that these languages share a lot of common ground in grammar and vocabulary. Spanish is very easy to pronounce and almost all sounds are written the way they are spoken. This is not the case with Portuguese, since it is a much more phonetical language." So the linguistic link may not be as close as you may think but the fact as you've mentioned of Abel being around 'Latin' coaches might help him. I think the biggest plus will be the quality of Silva and his team's work on the training ground. My first impression of Silva is that he commands attention and he gives off an air of realistic confidence
Jak in goal, stick with 3-5-2, get another centre back for cover and a new RWB, play Huddlestone, Livermore and Snodrass in the middle, and Mbokani (or better) with Hernandez up front and we have a chance. Clucas needs a rest. Mason needs confidence. Tymon looks like a real prospect. All is not lost. Phelan never convinced. Nice draw in the FA Cup tonight.
How can we play 3-5-2 with only one fit centre half? The 4-4-2 system is the one Silva favours, it looked infinitely better on Saturday and I expect to see it more often. 3-5-2 with Mbokani and Snodgrass up front has got us to 20th place, it's time to try something different.
The difference between portuguese and spanish is that the latter are stupid. Have you heard spanish people trying to speak english? The only one iknow who speaks very well is Bellerin from Arsenal.
OK - take two guys speaking English - one is from the depths of Newcastle!!! & the other is from the depths of New Zealand. Speaking at speed may make them unintelligible to each other but if theyreally wish to communicate with each other they can do so by removing the colloquial and slowing down. Portuguese and Spanish are 89% lexically similar.
I honestly think Abel didn't rate Phelan at all and would have been on his way pretty quickly had he stuck around. I never even got the sense he was that impressed with Bruce. Silva on the other hand has a certain pedigree about him. All of this could be BS and Hernandez could be gutted that his mate Mike is gone. Who knows
Easy, easy. I work for a Spanish company and I can assure you they speak better English than most English people I know!