PREMIER LEAGUE GAFFERS XI

For no real reason other than wistfully watching Michael Laudrup sat on the Swansea bench smiling beatifically at the worthy-though-limited efforts of Routledge and Dyer, two wingers not fit to lace his boots (not because they were too wee), I decided to pick an XI from the current Premier League bosses. They’d play 4-3-3, reverting to 4-3-1-2 with Laudrup in the free role when/if the shit was hitting the fan. 

PREMIER LEAGUE GAFFERS XI  

Adkins (Southampton)

Moyes (Everton)

Jol (Fulham)

Clarke (WBA)

Hughton (Norwich)

O'Neill (Sunderland)

Lambert (Villa)

Di Matteo (Chelsea)

Laudrup (Swansea)

Hughes (QPR)

Mancini (Man City)

Gaffer’s Gaffer (aka Gafferísimo): Ferguson (FA)

If you think this team – aside from the front line, obviously – isn’t up to much, then you ought to have a look at Serie A, La Liga or the Bundesliga. You’d barely scrape a 5-a-side team out of any of them.

Instead, they’d probably come unstuck against each of English football’s next two tiers’ composite Gaffer XIs, even if the Champo doesn’t have a goalkeeper. It seems that, in England, you do have to be a horse before you become a jockey. 

CHAMPIONSHIP XI (4-4-2; diamond)

Pearson or Mowbray (Leicester/Middlesbrough)

Grayson (Huddersfield)

Berg (Blackburn)

Bruce (Hull)

Powell (Charlton)

Solbakken (Wolves)

Clark (Birmingham)

Jacket (Millwall)

Poyet (Brighton)

Clough (Derby)

Zola (Watford)

LEAGUE ONE XI (4-1-5: make the system fit the players, yeah?)

Blackwell (Bury)

Laws (Scunthorpe)

Curle (Notts County)

Moore (Tranmere)

Howe (Bournemouth)

Wilson (Sheffield United)

Saunders (Doncaster)

Dickov (Oldham)

Robins (Coventry)

Rosler (Brentford)

Di Canio (Swindon)

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