Liverpool v Manchester United: The worst combined XI of the last decade | OneFootball

Brad Jones, Wout Weghorst, Lazar Markovic and Cameron Borthwick-Jackson all feature.

Thanks to Liverpool’s summer of 2014 and Louis van Gaal, we’ve an XI from the last decade, though some of the current Man Utd players are pushing hard…

Liverpool and Manchester United may be the Premier League’s showpiece occasion but it has featured some absolute dross over the last 10 years, even before these Red Devils take to the Anfield pitch on Sunday. As evidence, here’s an XI, made up of at least five players from either side.

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GK: Brad Jones The Australia goalkeeper was the beneficiary of Brendan Rodgers’ decision to drop Simon Mignolet for the visit to Old Trafford in October 2014. It was Jones’ first Premier League appearance for 21 months. And it showed.

The stand-in keeper dived out of the way of Wayne Rooney’s opener and fell hook, line and sinker for Juan Mata’s dummy to allow Robin van Persie an empty net for United’s game-clinching third.

RB: Andre Wisdom The right-back was an England Under-21 international before he made his senior debut for Liverpool. The Reds were obviously banking on Wisdom to make the grade since they gave him a long-term contract after eight Premier League appearances.

Wisdom inked that deal a couple of days before playing in defence at Old Trafford in a 2-1 win for United. He played only five more times in the Premier League, including a cameo role in a 1-0 win over the Red Devils at Anfield.

He managed only one more appearance before spending the rest of his contract on loan at Derby, West Brom, Norwich and Red Bull Salzburg. Warrington Town, to save you a Google.

CB: Paddy McNair McNair has made a decent career in the game after persuading Jose Mourinho to let him leave United on a permanent basis when the ex-United boss only wanted to see him go on loan. “I just wanted to go to Sunderland and play in the Premier League every week.” Ah.

Much to his chagrin, he makes this XI as a central defender after replacing Phil Jones for the final minute of the 3-0 win over Liverpool in 2014. “I’m not a defender; I’ve never been a defender,” he said in 2016. “I filled in there a few times. Van Gaal played me there and I was happy to play there for him but in the back of my mind I always thought, ‘No, this isn’t my position, I know I’m a midfielder’.”

McNair is now pushing 150 games as a centre-back for Middlesbrough.

CB: Steven Caulker Between Caulker and McNair, the centre-back pairing has a total of two minutes’ action in United v Liverpool clashes.

One of Liverpool’s stranger signings during a strange period, Caulker featured for the final few seconds of the Reds’ 1-0 home defeat to United in 2016 – though the central defender was chucked on as an emergency striker, as he was the week before against Arsenal.

Caulker made three Premier League appearances for Liverpool totalling four minutes.

LB: Cameron Borthwick-Jackson During the second half of 2015/16, it seemed like Borthwick-Jackson might see off Luke Shaw in the battle for the left-back spot at Old Trafford. Louis van Gaal clearly fancied the academy graduate, who made 16 appearances under the Dutchman including a 1-0 win at Anfield.

On Van Gaal’s recommendation, United gave Borthwick-Jackson a four-year contract which he signed on the same day Marcus Rashford committed his long-term future to United. But when Borthwick-Jackson put pen to paper, Van Gaal had just departed having been replaced by Jose Mourinho, and the full-back never played again for United.

Borthwick-Jackson, now 26, is bench-warming for Slask Wroclaw in Poland after sliding down the EFL.

CM: Morgan Schneiderlin One half of the highly-anticipated Schmidfield signed by Van Gaal in 2014 which turned out to be Schite.

There were high hopes for Schneiderlin when he joined from Southampton for £25million in 2015. But it never happened for him at Old Trafford. He wasn’t terrible but never did it seem that he belonged in the United XI before he was sold to Everton 18 months after he arrived.

“When you play football, you need to play with freedom and I didn’t in my first year in Manchester,” he reflected upon leaving United, exposing an abject lack of research into Van Gaal.

CM: Luis Alberto The midfielder made his Liverpool debut during the last seven minutes of a 1-0 win over United in September 2013 but he was never trusted to start for the Reds in the Premier League. He managed only 14 appearances in all competitions before being loaned to Malaga and then Deportivo La Coruna.

“I think it’s a little bit my fault,” he told France Football in 2020. “I didn’t do everything necessary to be at my level in terms of work and focus.”

That would go some way towards explaining it. The lad presumably got his sh*t together because after being sold to Lazio at a loss, he made his Spain debut in 2017.

RW: Lazar Markovic “An exciting signing,” said Rodgers after Liverpool paid around £20million to bring the winger from Benfica during the cursed summer of 2014. “He is the sort of character who is hungry to get better and progress.”

Markovic didn’t get better and he didn’t progress. A hugely underwhelming first season at Anfield was as good as it got, with the Serbian spending the remainder of his Liverpool contract on loan at Fenerbahce, Sporting Lisbon, Hull and Anderlecht before moving to Fulham on a free transfer.

Antony pushing hard here, though…

LW: Shinji Kagawa

Dry your eyes, mate. Even Jurgen Klopp must now acknowledge that Kagawa was crap for United. Was it his fault? Not entirely, no. Of course, it would have helped if he played in his preferred central role for United. But who should Sir Alex Ferguson, David Moyes and Louis van Gaal have left out? Robin van Persie? Juan Mata? Wayne Rooney?

Kagawa failed to adapt and little he has done since leaving Old Trafford suggests he was treated unfairly. Though he does have a couple of wins over Liverpool to his name…

CF: James Wilson “James is one of the brightest young English prospects and we are delighted he has signed a new contract,” said Van Gaal in September 2015 when Wilson signed a new four-year deal.

The striker played only eight more minutes in the Premier League after that, having been given his debut by Ryan Giggs before Van Gaal played him 17 times in his first season in charge.

Wilson saw out his United contract at Brighton, Derby and Sheffield United – all in the Championship – before a year at Aberdeen. After 18 months in Scotland, the forward moved back in Manchester with Salford City, then on to Port Vale.

CF: Wout Weghorst God loves a trier, and Weghorst was certainly that. But after his one appearance in this fixture, as a No.10 in a 0-7 defeat at Anfield in March 2023, about the Dutch striker it was written ‘he has no business being at this level’.

He certainly wasn’t alone in that team on that particular day, which got off to a bad start when Weghorst thought it a good idea to touch the ‘This Is Anfield’ sign, boiling piss on both sides.