The worst Premier League team ever!

Tomorrow, I am going to select my best ever Premier League XI, but today I thought I would try to do the very opposite and look at who would make the starting line-up for the worst possible team.

I will play four-four-two and I challenge any side to try to lose to this one!

Whilst I believe that West Brom’s Scott Carson is a worthy candidate for this position, there actually are several others who were far worse. In last season’s Derby team, Roy Carroll and Steven Bywater hardly covered themselves in glory for example.

However, there can of course, only be one winner of the number one shirt. Manchester United’s Massimo Taibi stands head and shoulders above the rest! Four games he played, that’s all. Despite that, he became one of the most famous keepers in the world. His mistake to let a Matthew Le Tissier shot through his arms and legs has made it on to just about every football bloomer video ever made.

At the back, you are looking for a special type of player with great concentration and the ability to never make a mistake. I guess that means that Wigan’s Titus Bramble is at least in with a chance of making the bench in this side!

Other notable players include Dean Austin, now a coach at Watford, but previously one of Tottenham’s most ridiculed players, Frank Sinclair, the ultimate scorer of own goals, Gary Doherty, affectionately (or not) known as ‘the ginger Pele’, Darren Moore, the rock in last season’s Derby defence and the lamentable Jean-Alain Boumsong.

However, across my back four I have selected true class. The fairly easy to identify Abel Xavier, the truly amazing North London pairing of Ramon Vega and Igors Stepanovs and on the left, the exceptional Djimi Traore.

Xavier looked great but rarely played great. Vega made Titus Bramble look like a model of consistency. Stepanovs played only a few games for Arsenal including a 6-1 defeat at Old Trafford and Traore became the brunt of jokes amongst his own Liverpool fans.

In the midfield, Manchester United feature quite strongly in the reckoning. Who can forget the amazing talents of Eric Djemba-Djemba and Kleberson?

For wide players, Luke Chadwick and Jordi Cruyff stake a pretty strong claim as well.

Liverpool’s Igor Biscan has to be in the line-up however and who better to partner him than Carlton Palmer. His manager once said of Palmer, “He covers every blade of grass out there. But that’s only because his first touch is so crap.”

So there it is, I’ll go Chadwick, Biscan, Palmer and Cruyff.

Chadwick looked like being a huge talent but he just didn’t have the charisma or the face for television that the likes of Beckham, Sharpe and Giggs had. As it turned out, he didn’t have their ability either. Biscan was never a Premier League player, surely, Palmer was a hard working but seriously limited individual and Jordi must have made his dad weep!

There are again a few worthy candidates for a starting place up front. In terms of waste of money, the great Andrei Shevchenko certainly deserves a mention as does the hyped and terribly disappointing Liverpool career of Fernando Morientes.

Staying with the Liverpool theme, Voronin was hardly a great success last season!

One name to conjure with is that of Aston Villa’s Bosco Balaban. He cost six million pounds but doesn’t qualify for the squad because he never actually made it on to the pitch.

Honourable mentions must go to Francis Jeffers, who never fulfilled any of his apparent potential and also to Middlesbrough ‘hit-man’ Lee Dong Gook.

Despite this wonderful list of names, the two players I will select will be the horrendously overweight and uninterested Thomas Brolin and the totally ineffective Sergei Rebrov. Between them they were £16 million of…..talent? That worked out at over a million pounds per goal!

Who should manage the side? Well thought must be given to Christian Gross, Glenn Roeder, Bryan Robson, Sammy Lee and Paul Ince, but I couldn’t possibly entertain the serious thought of anyone other than Steve McClaren for the role.

What a line-up that is!

Taibi

Brolin, Rebrov

Manager – The wally with the brolly

Your suggestions of other candidates would be welcomed.