Richard Dunne had me in a headlock.
I was like, Nicky Weaver
Nicky Weaver!
He had me in the headlock, and he said Hart, Hart!
and i said 'Okay Hart!'
Let's talk about formation.
What formation have we decided on for your master eleven?
I'm still recovering from the headlock. What formation, 4-4-2 diamond?
Yes, we decided to go for a diamond in the midfield.
Lovely.
OK.
And also another important question before we get to the team.
Are you wearing suits on the sidelines or you wearing tracksuits?
What we decided to, you know, take on the management roles.
So I've got Bermuda shorts on.
No I'll stick with the trackie, all good.
Okay, now we've got that out the way.
We begin with the key people.
Shaun, it sounds like you've gone for Joe Hart?
I said Weaver!
But it's Hart.
It's Joe Hart.
Obviously all the trophies that he's won. Quality goalkeeper.
Also England, everything.
We all know the history.
Joe Hart.
Yes.
Okay.
All right.
Let's look at the backline then.
Because we've got a centre back right here.
in Richard Dunne.
Have you put yourself in there?
No, no! I've chosen good players.
He has the trackie on!
He's got the tracksuit on in case it's needed.
So fullback, who did you end up settling on?
Along the whole backline it was difficult.
They were the ones that I built up the relationships with.
So many over the years, to narrow that down to four is difficult.
In terms of right back, gone for Micah, I think as a young lad when he broke through
The sort of player he was, the person he was, he was a breath of fresh air
for the team, and I think he was the youngest defender to play for England.
I think he's a worthy choice.
Deeecent!
Okay, moving into the centre half partnership.
Of course, we know that the great Richard Dunne isn't in it.
Who has made the cut?
Distin. We put Distin in there.
That obviously had a great career, but I just found him to be really engaged player
in terms of training, working hard, coming in early, doing extra training.
That's what I found with Ditsin you know.
And normally you'd say with a foreign player
They were a certain way, but with Distin
He was tough.
He was a good player. A physicality about him.
in terms of his game, the intelligence, pace.
But, you know, he would be the one in early, doing stretches.
and also stay behind a bit.
So I loved his dedication, to always want to be at the highest level.
Setting that standard by example. And partnering him, Richard?
Well it has to be Kompany.
I think as a player, he's obviously a legend at the club. Has done amazing things.
He's won the league.
He's brought the club onto this sort of level that they're on now.
And even when he came in as a young lad into the team, I remember a team meeting
and during the team meeting he stood up
and he was only 19 and he wanted to understand
why we weren't winning games, why we are not performing
Why we were not training more
That's what we felt.
That's what we wanted to do.
For a 19 year old to come into the team
Actually put it into words and to stand up in front of people.
It was really impressive.
And you could see from from then what sort of person he was.
And it wasn't.
It was never about him.
It was about the team and about everyone improving.
He went from that, into becoming what we hoped that he would
This is one of the proudest moment of our life.
Lets look at the left back position. Who have you gone for Shaun?
We've gone for Zaba, you know. He's just quality
He's aggressive in his game and it was like he was from Manchester.
He understood, you know, he understood.
The Mancs, in terms of, getting stuck in, giving everything.
This ended up being an easy decision.
I was sort of saying Danny Tiatto, you know, he was a player at the time
that was doing well. Stuart Pearce was another one that came to mind,
but Dunne at the same time, still had me in his headlock.
Okay, so then we're moving into this diamond shape in midfield.
And who is it that's sitting in front of the back four? Richard.
So this is sort of going back to when we both were at City.
Well, was it 2000 or something like that when you were playing?
And Kevin Horlock was the holding midfielder for the team and
the job that was outstanding, you know, he was everywhere.
He was winning headers.
He actually used to stand in front of me and Steve Howey
He would head all the balls because he was that good at it.
As a person, he was brilliant. Really, really good lad
He needs to be in the side.
Yeah.
I mean, Kevin Horlock, What was really good about him
He was somebody.
I look for to assist me.
He also had that quality with his left foot
deliver a ball down the side or over the top.
Kevin Horlock when it was the playoffs, I'm thinking when he gets
on his left foot, I'm making my run because he had that quality.
So no one got in that holding role, and he also had that bite.
He had that tackle, You know, we talked about people
like Michael Brown being in there, Marc-Vivian Foè.
But we were like Kevin Horlock is the one that we're happy with in there.
Growing up for me, I had the pleasure of watching
both of you play for Manchester City
I also watched some incredible midfield partnerships.
So who are the two going into our midfield, Shaun?
Well, this is where Dunne started getting off me,
'Shauney Wright'
and Elano.
I mean those two. We are going for a diamond midfield.
But Shauney Wright, Wright...
SHAUNEY WRIGHT, WRIGHT, WRIGHT!
Explosive down the right hand side.
Could put a tackle in. For a short guy every now and again,
He would just get the ball at his feet and he'll hit a screamer
And you just think, Where's that come from?
You know, But also, he had that fight about him.
He'd win a tackle and then turn it into an attack.
When I played for City one of the best things for me.
about playing for Man City. Was playing with Shaun Wright-Phillips.
As a kid coming through and progressing as a footballer, you've never seen
anything like him. It was a real pleasure to play alongside.
Paul Dickov has spoken about him. You almost all had him
all under your wings a little bit because he was coming through
the youth system, but Paul said right from the minute he made that
step up, he hit the ground running.
You could see the talent he had. He had it to burn.
He was amazing. He was a joy every day in training.
And he just loved football.
He loved taking people on, we used to kick lumps out of him.
An he just didn't care.
He'd be in any Man City team I think.
And then you said about Elano who came under Sven.
We didn't really know much about him.
I think the first game we played, we were away at West Ham in the league.
Just absolutely, a completely different level of footballer that we've had.
At City for the 10 years previous to that I suppose
He was the one that could open things up, and could see things.
Him, since the next player we're going to name
there was nobody like him, till Elano came along.
I've gotta say still one of the best free kicks I've ever seen.
Incredible.
What a player!
Unbelievable player. So who is this
player that you talk about, Richard? Just in front of the diamond.
Ali Benarbia
What a player.
Oh, yes, player.
He was the Kevin DeBruyne before we had Kevin DeBruyne.
What was he like to play with?
Well, listen, when he came to the club.
we didn't know much about him.
And I remember on a Friday we played 5-a-side.
You sort of observing, to see what he is like.
We run and play the game and you could see a little bit, but it was about
a third game in, and I remember thinking I'm making runs and then stopping
and the ball was there and then I said, You know what Shaun
Just keep running.
It was about the third, or fourth game in.
I kept running and the ball just landed there, and I just went.
Hallelujah! What a player.
But the unique thing about Ali was the ball could be on his
left foot and he could deliver that ball with backspin.
Wherever it needed to be, on the opposite side of the defender.
Just into your stride to then shoot, or take it round the keeper
He was just brilliant as a midfielder, I can't speak highly enough about it.
He is absolute brilliance.
I can't imagine what it was like to play with him, but it was an absolute joy to
watch week in week out, especially as a kid, because it's those type of players
that really excite you, and you want to try and do everything that they were doing.
But to play with them, even just to watch him or
play against him Richard, it must be incredible.
It was amazing
Someone that comes in, who was just on a different level, the partnership that
he and Berkovic struck up that year in the championship was amazing.
They destroyed the whole league.
You would have loved to have him when he was 24 or 25 .
I actually was with him. I spend a bit of time with him, from time to time and
we were playing their beach tennis, last last summer it would have been.
And he's still got It. He is 50 years old and he has still got it.
Myself and his son, the two of them are brilliant.
I was going to ask about Berkovic, actually, because that partnership
as you say was dynamite.
Bringing Berkovitc on there's not too bad, is it?
I mean between the two of them.
It's difficult to think, but Bernarbia
Just had that something really special about him and he could
dribble out of any situation and create out of nothing.
You on the sideline. You've got your bermuda shorts on.
Give it to Bernarbia!
You you know playing yourself there?
I haven't even put the tracksuit on
Anelka is one of the forwards. Anelka just had an ability.
When he wanted to show up, he showed up.
When he showed up.
He could just go across two or three players when he wanted
What I disliked was he could just naturally do it.
And I'll be the one after training say, right, let me do my half hour extra.
Anelka
I don't know if he ever done extras?
But he was here in terms of a player. 'I'm going to take these two players on'
what he was really good at was, Stop-Start.
Some players need to gain that momentum.
He would sort of walk towards you, take off stop and take off again.
So when you sort of down your engines, he revs back up, he's going again.
But obviously with the quality,
Plus, he's got a Netflix out.
He had to get in my team, of course.
The final forward, Richard
and we've gone far Tevez
I didn't play him for very long. It was a short period but you could see what
he had, in terms of determination and skill and talent.
He had everything he was again.
You talk about players who can drive the club forward
and bring them on to that next level.
Carlos Tevez is certainly one of those and he again
a City legend who went on to win lots of trophies and score lots of goals.
And I think, off that, I have to say the season where we know he took
a little bit of an extended break, but came back.
I still say to this day, had Tevez not returned.
I don't think we'd have won the league that year
because he really did just have about them.
He has that ability to change games, to change atmospheres, to change dressing
rooms because there's not many players with that fighting spirit inside them.
Alongside the amount of talent he had and yeah, he was.
a player who gave everything, in every game.
I mean, you wouldn't notice this.
But whilst Dunne had me in a headlock?
The only thing I was really thinking is, 'Shaun make sure the spine of the team.
are the players you played with' So you see, Distin, Horlock.
Bernarbia and Anelka
That is a team that I would love to see grace the pitch again.
Wouldn't that be magic?
Just thinking, back of all the memories that all those
players gave me as a Manchester City fun.
It was absolutely incredible.
And now I'm just looking forward to seeing many more of these throughout the season.
That's absolutely.
I think what we should be pushing for Kyle.
We're going to try and recreate these teams here.
We're gonna put the calls in, you give him all a call.
11 on 11 the two best.
And then that'll just be all city fans.
Dreams, I think, wouldn't it?
You called my people, but I may not show up.
I'll have ironed the Bermuda shorts ready.
Fresh for you.
I forgot.
I'm not playing.
I was just thinking about running in the channels.
Gentlemen.
Thank you for that.
We're doing this throughout the season here on.
We're not really here. We look forward to getting more of those Master elevens
Thank you so much.