Football lovers in England have had lots to enjoy over the years.
The Premier League kicked off in 1992 with only 13 players from outside the British Isles appearing in the first weekend of matches. It’s evolved into a cosmopolitan, international behemoth and some of the best players in the world have blessed its turf.
There’s only one way to celebrate the best players in every position from three decades of history. Based on FourFourTwo’s ranking of the 100 best-ever Premier League players, we’ve built the ultimate Premier League XI.
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The Greatest Ever Premier League XI – GK: Peter Schmeichel
Ranking at no.17 in our overall list, Schmeichel is a five-time Premier League winner and the goalkeeper who backstopped Manchester United to a famous treble in 1999.
He was a titan of United throughout the nineties and finished his career in with Aston Villa and Manchester City. He threw the ball as far as some goalkeepers could kick it and scored ten career goals for good measure.
RB: Trent Alexander-Arnold
No.43 is the newly departed Alexander-Arnold, who swapped Liverpool for Real Madrid after collecting his second Premier League title with his boyhood club.
Alexander-Arnold was half of a pair of full-backs who helped to revolutionise the position under Jurgen Klopp. His passing and creative abilities have seen him play in midfield and make him an attacking threat even from his more usual position.
LB: Ashley Cole
Vastly underrated in some quarters, Cole is ranked at no.18 in FourFourTwo’s overall list and stands as one of England’s finest full-backs.
As well as making more than 100 appearances for the Three Lions, he won the FA Cup seven times with Arsenal and Chelsea and is a three-time Premier League winner – two with the Gunners, then once with the Blues, when he became one of the most shocking football transfers ever when he moved across the capital.
He was an Arsenal invincible, but his defensive attributes were all too often overlooked.
CB: Rio Ferdinand
In many ways the archetype of the modern English centre-back, Ferdinand was a formidable defender and a composed player with the ball at his feet.
Ranked in our list at no.22, Ferdinand was expensively acquired first by Leeds United and then by Manchester United and justified both fees as the foremost central defender of his generation. He has the medal collection to prove it.
CB: Virgil van Dijk
A two-time champion on both sides of Hadrian’s Wall, Van Dijk (no.13) joined Southampton from Celtic and made them a huge profit, when became the Reds’ record signing.
At Liverpool, the Dutch defender grew into his greatness as a senior figure in a team that’s won the Champions League as well as two Premier League titles. Van Dijk is a modern icon at a club that knows how to spot one.
CM: Kevin De Bruyne
Listed at the sixth-best Premier League player, De Bruyne’s move to Napoli brought a famously successful stint at Manchester City, where he scored over 100 goals.
He won six Premier League titles, two FA Cups, five League Cups and the Champions League, and was a central presence – literally and figuratively – in City’s Abu Dhabi-powered rise under Pep Guardiola.
CM: Roy Keane
Sky Sports pundit Keane (no.9) would have been the perfect midfield foil for De Bruyne but his unshakeable will to win, tough tackling and fearsome demeanour shouldn’t overshadow his footballing qualities.
Manchester United’s treble-winning captain has a total of seven Premier League titles to his name and anchored some of the league’s best-ever XIs.
RW: Mohamed Salah
Ranked at no.5 in our overall list – ranked at no.1 FourFourTwo’s list of the best African footballers ever – Salah had a knack for scoring against English opposition for Basel. Sadly for Liverpool’s Premier League opponents, that habit has stood the test of time.
Returning to England after an earlier spell with Chelsea, Salah put himself in the very uppermost reaches of Premier League all-timers and he seems to keep getting better.
SS: Wayne Rooney
Rooney (no.3) burst onto the scene as a teenager and book-ended a glittering Manchester United career at Everton. He scored 208 goals in 16 years in the Premier League, many of them best described as spectacular. Only Harry Kane and Alan Shearer scored more.
As well as racking up over 50 international goals, Rooney won the Premier League five times and helped United win the Champions League in 2008.
LW: Cristiano Ronaldo
Ronaldo (no.2) is one of the Premier League’s greatest-ever players, even if there was much more to follow at Real Madrid, when he broke the all-time transfer record. His freakish work ethic and thirst for improvement started to take hold at Old Trafford.
He won seven major trophies with the Red Devils, scored 103 Premier League goals in two spells, and went on to collect the Ballon d’Or five times.
ST: Thierry Henry
Ranked by FourFourTwo as the best player in Premier League history, Arsenal legend Henry was a joy to watch throughout a career that yielded 175 Premier League goals, two PFA Player of the Year awards, two league titles and three FA Cups in England.
Henry was the cutting edge of Arsenal’s invincibles and his trademark fluid rampaging from the left was a feature of the Premier League’s most exciting title races.
