Gary Neville and Jamie Carragher have named six Liverpool players — Alisson, Virgil van Dijk, Trent Alexander-Arnold, Jordan Henderson and Mohamed Salah — in their Monday night Football team of the year.
The duo decided to leave out Sadio Mane but included Tottenham’s Heung-Min Son on the left-side with Harry Kane at the Centre of the attack.
Manchester United’s Bruno Fernandes and City’s Kevin de Bruyne found place in the midfield as well whereas Wolverhampton Wanderers’ Conor Coady was put into central defence along with Van Dijk.
While most of these players have been the stars of the Premier League for a while now, Coady’s inclusion among them became a topic of discussion.
“I put into contention Eric Dier, Harry Maguire, Conor Coady, Aymeric Laporte and Tyrone Mings,” said Neville.
“Coady to be fair with Wolves’ defensive record, breaking into the England team and his stats were as good as any of the rest. Laporte’s missed games, it just became a choice,” he added.
Carragher also echoed Neville’s thoughts.
“There’s always that question until you’ve played at international level or European football.
“I think making the step up with the international team and his personality in defence as well he deserves to get in.
“We talk about keeping clean sheets, his passing from the back is as good as anyone.
“There is possibly only Virgil van Dijk in the Premier League who is better as a centre back. That back five almost picked itself.”
The duo also discussed why they picked Son over Mane. According to them, what Son has done individually at a club which hasn’t done so well as a team over the years is incredible.
“You cannot criticise Son or Mane. There’s no negatives about them and every club in the world would want Son or Mane playing for them,” Neville said.
“But when you plug the goals and assists in Son has done better in a team that’s not done as good as Liverpool but that’s no reflection on Mane.”
Carragher agreed with Neville once again: “I love Mane but he’s going through a spell at the moment with one goal in nine games and Son has been off the charts you can’t not pick him.”
