The PFA Awards were, quite frankly, crap and boring (even though they had 8 United players in their team of the season).
So let’s pick our own team – but first, some nitpicking on PFA’s picks.
Cristiano Ronaldo’s won the PFA 2007 Player of the Year and Young Player of the Year awards, beating Fabregas and Lennon for the latter and Drogba and Scholes for the former.
Ok, now that that’s out of my system, let’s get on with the news, shall we?
It’s a fair result even though some of the nominations were a problem (as I mentioned earlier).
The PFA Prem Team of the Year (2007) is loaded with Manchester United players. Here’s the list:
Edwin van der Sar, Gary Neville, Rio Ferdinand, Nemanja Vidic, Patrice Evra, Cristiano Ronaldo, Paul Scholes, Steven Gerrard, Ryan Giggs, Didier Drogba, Dimitar Berbatov
Replace Drogba with Rooney and Evra with Heinze and you’d have United’s ideal team, right? 🙂
Considering that these nominations were made in January, it’s understandable that people like van der Sar, Evra, Neville and Giggs make the list – EVDS is probably up there at the top in terms of quality keepers in the Prem, but it’s a very tough call and several other keepers could make a claim for it.
With Neville, I’m not sure he’s the top right back, although he did play pretty well in the first half of the season. Finnan probably pips him over the course of the season.
Rio and Vidic are fair choices – Terry hasn’t played the full season, and the only other players who might compete with these two are Dawson (Tottenham’s unsung hero this season), Carvalho (who’s held Chelsea together for most of the season) and Carragher. I’d say it’s a tie between Rio, Vida, Carvalho and Carragher, and after that it comes down to bias. It’s easier to vote for Rio and Vidic because they’re so good as a team, and are arguably the best center-back pairing United has seen for a long time.
Evra is a surprise, but he has little competition. Baines, Barry, Riise and Barry are the only other left backs of note that have performed well, but I’m not going to argue much about Evra (already said enough in the past).
Ronaldo and Drogba are shoe-ins. Scholes is a fair pick, although I’m surprised that any one of Lampard, Essien and Carrick didn’t make the cut. And seeing Gerrard listed as a central midfielder, after he’s been played exclusively on the right, is priceless. Rafa knows, right? 🙂
Berbatov vs Rooney and van Persie, and Giggsy vs ??? There’s little competition for Giggs, and this is one of the limitations of this format – I’d have Ronaldo on the left and Lennon on the right.
Anyway, since we’ve already discussed this at length, here’s my Prem team of the season (you’re welcome to add yours in the comments):
Petr Cech, Michael Essien, Rio Ferdinand, Nemanja Vidic, Riise, Aaron Lennon, Michael Carrick, Frank Lampard, Cristiano Ronaldo, Wayne Rooney, Didier Drogba.
This side would score so many goals it’s not even funny. Everyone can score, even Rio, whose runs are a joke and a pleasure to watch.
That’s about it from me. Your turn to pick a team.
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