Diego Costa and Paul Pogba fail to make Matt Le Tissier's Man Utd and Chelsea combined XI
Friday 14 April 2017 14:42, UK
Matt Le Tissier has picked his best combined XI from Manchester United and Chelsea ahead of Super Sunday's clash - and some big names fail to make the cut.
The Southampton legend and Soccer Saturday pundit has unsurprisingly gone for a Blues majority with Antonio Conte's men looking to make a significant step towards the title this weekend.
However, Zlatan Ibrahimovic gets the nod ahead of Diego Costa despite the pair both scoring 17 goals, while David de Gea is preferred to Thibaut Courtois, having conceded a goal less than his opposite number.
Here's Le Tiss's XI in full and his justification...
"Two honourable mentions go to Paul Pogba and Antonio Valencia, who were both very close to getting in. I initially had Pedro in there but have gone for Juan Mata instead.
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"David de Gea is my goalkeeper as somebody I rate as right up there with the best around. It probably helps his cause that United aren't quite as dominant as they once were. It just goes to show the benefits in keeping faith with young goalkeepers.
"I've gone for an all-Chelsea defence, with Gary Cahill, David Luiz and Cesar Azpilicueta making up my central trio, and was quite surprised that United have conceded less goals this season.
"However, you have to take into consideration that Conte's side have scored nearly 20 more goals and much of that is because their full-backs offer a lot more going forward, with Marcos Alonso scoring five times and Victor Moses chipping in with another three.
"I was tempted to ditch Moses for Valencia but what Moses has done this season deserves great credit.
"I'm trying to justify putting some United players in the middle but I can't really make a case. You might argue Pogba could play instead of Cesc Fabregas, who just edges out Nemanja Matic for me despite playing less, but I think he's disappointed generally.
"Behind my striker there's no doubt that Eden Hazard is in there. N'Golo Kante and Hazard are the first names on the sheet and I'm sure they'll battle it our for all of the individual awards. Kante will probably get most people's votes but personally I like to see the top awards go to the creative players scoring the important goals.
"Then I've gone with Mata just ahead of Pedro on the other side. He's a player I like and once again perhaps attracts a bit of personal bias as he is a bit like me in not being blessed with pace!
"Then, up top, Costa gets very close but I just think Ibrahimovic, at his age and what he's done this season, is impossible to leave out of the team."
Fantasy Six-a-Side XI...
We've also compiled the highest scoring XI based on the Opta data which powers Sky Sports Fantasy Six-a-Side.
Pogba makes the line-up and is actually the highest-scoring player, having completed more passes than any other player and created 53 chances, second only to Hazard (65).
Manchester United v Chelsea is this weekend's Fantasy Six-a-Side fixture, with the usual £5,000 up for grabs for the highest scoring entrant plus a £100,000 jackpot for predicting the top six scoring players plus the correct minute of the first goal.