Former Manchester United coach Steve McClaren insists Virgil van Dijk is the only player from the current Liverpool side who’d make a combined XI with the Red Devils’ famous 1999 treble winners.
In case you need reminding, Sir Alex Ferguson’s team won an incredible three trophies that season – the Premier League, FA Cup and Champions League – making them unquestionably one of the greatest club sides of the modern era.
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However, the way Liverpool are playing this season suggests they’re also going to be remembered as being among the all-time greats, with the Premier League title looking pretty much sewn up even though we’re only in February.
Jurgen Klopp’s men are also reigning European Champions and have world class talent in each position, so there’s surely a case to be made for a few of them making a combined line up alongside United’s treble winners?
McClaren doesn’t think so, telling Sky Sports that Van Dijk is the only one who gets in, though there may be a decent amount of bias there as he worked with that Man Utd team that season.
“Virgil van Dijk next to Jaap Stam, that would be invincible. Nobody would get past them,” he said.
“But for me, seriously, only Van Dijk would get into that team. When you look at that Manchester United team, that is leadership throughout the whole team, and leadership was the key.
“Liverpool are developing that now.”
While this LFC side are yet to win anything this season, their utter dominance of the Premier League surely points towards them being a special team, so we think there’s got to be a case for one or two more players getting in a combined XI.
It’s difficult to compare these sides due to the difference in tactics and to the different eras they played in, but it’s hard to imagine there isn’t perhaps room for Trent Alexander-Arnold over Gary Neville, or perhaps Sadio Mane alongside Dwight Yorke and Andrew Cole in a front three rather than the two up top that United played that season.