Australian international winger Sammy Silvera has joined United’s opening weekend visitors Portsmouth on a season-long loan from Middlesbrough following last year’s first experience of the division with the Riversiders. Silvera, who joined Boro from Central Coast Mariners, bagged 37 Championship outings for Boro and now joins a club that are new to the level following last season’s promotion as champions of League One.
Silvera, though, insists the standard that he has already seen at Pompey in training is “close” to what he saw from other Championship sides last season “if not better”.
As quoted by Portsmouth publication The News, Silvera declared: “The Championship is an up and down league. From my first 12 months at Middlesbrough we were up, down, up down. There was talk of relegation at one point and then we were close to promotion. No matter what, on your day, if you’re at it, consistent mentally and up for it you can beat anyone.
“The quality I’ve seen so far here is close to some of the teams there, if not better. If we can keep working hard then it will come down to being clinical in both boxes. If we can defend as a team, score as a team and take that winning mentality we have into games and outwork teams, I think we can win.”
Silvera added: “From the first day I came in I was watching the running and the standard was set with some big numbers. It’s a good standard and, to be honest, I was blown away by the running stats over the first couple of days. The standards being set here start with the gaffer and comes all the way down.
‘These are the standards we want to push higher and higher and from the captain, you can see he drives it. He wants to push and has that experience. As a playing group we are going to keep pushing and pushing, because this is where the hard work is done.”
