“I don’t think he gets the kind of adulation he deserves.”
As the Premier League celebrates its 30th birthday, BT Sport have asked the fans to vote for their greatest all-time Premier League starting XI.
As you can imagine this has caused some debate and several ex-players could count themselves hard done by, such as Frank Lampard, Michael Owen, and John Terry.
BT pundit and former Manchester United defender Rio Ferdinand starts in centre back in the fans team, but still wanted to make some changes.
Your all-time Premier League XI 🥵
Who is the biggest omission from this squad?!
You can select your own XI at https://t.co/V19Lv4wypQ and join the conversation using #PLImmortals 👊#PL30 pic.twitter.com/zEjvKXS0fL
— Football on TNT Sports (@footballontnt) August 12, 2022
Bizarrely the Old Trafford legend chose to remove his old United teammate Gary Neville from the team and swap him for Manchester City’s Kyle Walker. The England right back is obviously a great player, but I’m not sure many would have picked him in their starting XI.
Ferdinand also didn’t agree with his centre back partner Virgil van Dijk, replacing him with another old colleague Nemanja Vidic.
His squad in full was: Peter Schmeichel; Kyle Walker, Rio Ferdinand, Nemanja Vidic, Ashley Cole; Patrick Vieira, Paul Scholes, Steven Gerrard; Thierry Henry, Wayne Rooney, Cristiano Ronaldo.
Even the fact that he opted to drop Alan Shearer, the top scorer in Premier League history, is a controversial decision, but he did make some good points about why Wayne Rooney should be there.
“What I will say – an in form Rooney is one of the best players we’ve ever seen, especially an English player. He was a ridiculous football player.
“It’s going to be about five, maybe ten years before people start going ‘actually, woah’ and giving him the respect he deserves. I don’t think he gets the kind of adulation he deserves.
“That front three (Henry, Rooney, Ronaldo), I just can’t look beyond that.”
When asked how he felt when dropping Shearer, the old England captain was unwavering in his decision.
“That’s another consideration I had to take but, listen, I went with somebody I played with a lot of times and I’ve seen him unnerve every type of of defender – the best, the biggest, the fastest, the ugliest.
“Rooney did that every single week we went out there. Sorry, Al!”
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