This is a good one. A Manchester team combining the best of both United and City. I am going to go with a 4-1-3-2 combination. Let’s look at the various positions:
1) Joe Hart shall be the keeper of the team. A strong, solid performer, he has become a mainstay in the City team and is the established first choice keeper for England. David De Gea is a pretty good keeper himself but he is not better than Hart at this point of time.
2) My four defenders will be Micah Richards, Nemanja Vidic, Vincent Kompany and Patrice Evra. Kompany just edges Rio Ferdinand out because he is young (25 years old) and so has pace which Rio doesn`t. Also, he has great positioning ability and would be a great partner for the trustworthy Vidic. Richards and Evra are the obvious choices out wide because overall they are better than their rivals Rafael, Aleksander Kolarov and Gael Clichy.
3) I would use Yaya Toure as a CDM here. He is a better player than Gareth Barry and Nigel De Jong in the sense that he has a lot more to offer than just breaking up play. His powerful, surging runs forward are terrifying for defenders already saddled with the task of keeping a check on the attackers.
4) The 3 up ahead of Toure will be Nani, David Silva and Antonio Valencia. Samir Nasri would be a substitute for David Silva. Out wide, however, I feel that Nani is a better player which he has proved over the past couple of years. David Silva would be the playmaker of the team. He would play through balls to the strikers or put it wide for the wingers.
5) Up front it’s a simple choice. Wayne Rooney and Sergio Aguero. What a partnership. Fast and deadly are two words that come to mind about this partnership. They both are top class players who are prolific goal scorers and are highly talented. Their speed and movement would create all sorts of problems for the opposition defenses and their ability to bring others into play would be a huge asset to the team. Goals are a guarantee with these two around. One can be pretty confident of that!
6) In the subs bench I would have a wealth of talent to choose from. The likes of Phil Jones, Chris Smalling, Nasri, Mario Balotelli (who can forget this guy!), Javier Hernandez and Michael Carrick would be a great back up to the first XI.
7) Coach? No doubt. Sir Alex Ferguson He would be the man who will be the goon in the team (a famous quote in a Hindi movie went such: ‘there is place for only one goon in the team, and that’s me- a coach to a recalcitrant player’ )and so would keep the egos in the team in check.
This team would be strong everywhere and would do great in all competitions it played in.
Yashasvee Prasad
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