This would be my starting eleven of the season:
JAMES
EVRA
LESCOT
FERDINAND
SAGNA
RONALDO
FABREGAS
GERRARD
CRUZ
ADEBAYOR
TORRES
Sorting out the goalkeeper and defenders was pretty straight forward. James has easily been the best keeper this season, with only the Yanks, Friedel and Howard, coming close. Evra and Ferdinand have been consistently good for United all season, the later finally living up to his potential. Lescot can't stop scoring goals, while Sagna has solved Arsenal's right back weakness of last season. Vidic, Clichy and Laursen were the only others that came into contention.
Sorting out the forwards and mids was a touch harder. Originally I had a 4 man midfield with Hleb playing, but when it came to choosing strikers I couldn't decided between Adebayor and Cruz. So I ditched Hleb and switched to a Barca style 4-3-3. Having dropped Hleb the three midfield spots were no-brainers. Bentley, Arteta, Essien and Young have all had good seasons but had dips in form. Apart from Hleb, only Gareth Barry really pushed for a starting midfield spot.
Up top Torres was a shoe-in, while Cruz joins Adebayor. The Arsenal man is a bit hit and miss at times but 24 goals speaks for itself. Cruz hasn't scored as many, 19, but when it's factored in that he plays for defensively oriented Blackburn and only cost 2mil, he makes the cut.
My reserve 11 would be:
Howard
Carvalho
Vidic
Clichy
Laursen
Barry
Young
Bentley
Arteta
Hleb
Berbatov
Certain players like Brown, Vidic, Carrick, Arteta, Distin, Essien, Cole, Friedel and Carragher will be crying into their wives' plastic boobies about not having made the cut, complaining that they'd at least done enough to make it into the 2nd 11. But they didn't.
Here's Goal.com's EPL Eleven:
Premier League Team Of The Season
5 comments:
I would not even consider Hleb. An attacking midfielder who doesn't score does not deserve a spot on any end-of-season squad. And he didn't even make that many assists.
Oh, and for those who don't know, "TSB" stands for Tracksuit Bottoms.
Drogba's gotta be in the reserve team, at least.
Is there another Hleb, I don't know about.
Torres
Santa Cruz
Ronaldo
Fabregas
Essian
Young
Clichy
Rio
Laursen
Sagna
Cech
_________
James
Adebayor
Gerrard
Rooney
Vidic
I totally agree with you about Hleb not scoring enough goals. I trashed him repeatedly last season on the blog for holding up play. But this season he's been good enough to make the 2nd 11 easily. It seems like Inter and Barca agree.
Cech is your keeper JM? A top keeper no doubt but this season he has wobbled at times - he admitted himself he was to blame for losing to Ars.
Drogba? He's scored 8 goals in 17 games, which is a pretty good ratio, but you've gotta have played more times than that to be considered for team of the season.
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