Sunday, April 20, 2008

Team of the year: left-back

SPL: LEE NAYLOR (Celtic)
honourable mentions: Sasa Papac (Rangers), David Murphy (Hibernian)

While Papac did a darn good job for Wattie Smith this season, doing a pretty good impression of a full back when you consider that he normally can't impersonate a centre half, Naylor remains the best left sided defender in the SPL. He has remained solid even when his fellow defenders didn't, and remains as useful going forward as when defending.

EPL: PATRICE EVRA (Manchester United)
honourable mentions: Gael Clichy (Arsenal), Stephen Warnock (Blackburn Rovers)

It's a tough choice between the Frenchmen, who can both lay claim to be the footballing equivalent of the Duracell bunny (I mean in terms of stamina, not that they are pink, have tails or carry a drum). Evra just shades it for me - as Ryan Giggs fades, Alex Ferguson is hugely dependent on Evra to provide width on the left for United, and he does so superbly. Clichy, you feel, is still a year or two away from reaching his peak, but at the moment Evra is one of Europe's finest full-backs.

L.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Naylor is mince. Has to be Murphy.