🤯 An XI of PL legends who NEVER won Player of the Month | OneFootball

Another Premier League Player of the Month award was handed out on Friday and it went, for the first time, to Ilkay Gündogan.

Which got us thinking: which players didn’t ever win Premier League Player of the Month? And could we create a brilliant XI from them?

Spoiler: we could.

Goalkeeper

Peter Schmeichel

The greatest goalkeeper in Premier League history? Arguably.

The best number one Manchester United have ever had? Almost certainly.

And yet Peter Schmeichel, a top division shot-stopper for nigh on a decade, was not a winner of the Player of the Month Award once.

Defence

Gary Neville

Another of Manchester United’s fabled Treble-winning defence never won the Premier League’s monthly award during his glittering 15-year career.

Admittedly David Beckham got most of the plaudits down that right-hand side, but when you see the likes of Muzzy Izzet, Kevin Campbell and Alex Manninger all won it in 1998/99 it’s difficult to take Neville’s exemption.

Sol Campbell

His move from Tottenham to Arsenal put plenty of noses out of joint and it seems to have annoyed the Premier League voting panel too.

For there is simply no other reason why Sol Campbell wasn’t honoured as the division’s best player at any point during his time in the top flight.

Vincent Kompany

A Manchester City legend who led the club to the title on four separate occasions, with two iconic performances at home to Manchester United in 2011/12 and Leicester in 2018/19.

And yet never the Premier League’s best player over one single month.

Ashley Cole

Can you name a better left-back in the Premier League era?

Exactly. Which is why it’s an absolute scandal that Ashley Cole was never even considered the best player in the division.

Midfield

Xabi Alonso

Remember when Rafa Benitez tried to force Xabi Alonso out of Liverpool because he wanted Gareth Barry instead?

Well apparently the Premier League voting panel had the same amount of respect for this Champions League and World Cup winner as his former manager.

Patrick Vieira

A truly astonishing admission right here.

You know something is very, very wrong with the Premier League Player of the Month awards when Ray Parlour has won more than Patrick Vieira.

Kevin de Bruyne

A more recent edition to the canon.

We think it’s safe to say that Kevin de Bruyne, since moving to Manchester City in 2015, has been consistently one of the best performers in the entire division.

Since then, Teemu Pukki, Andre Ayew and Fraser Forster have all won Premier League Player of the Month gong.

Yaya Touré

For about a year in 2012, Yaya Touré was not just one of the best in the Premier League, but one of the most consistently impressive performers on the entire planet.

And yet he we are again, wondering why an astonishing player was never properly recognised.

Attack

Alexis Sánchez

Yes, we know it didn’t work out at Manchester United.

Yes, we’re well aware that he was potentially one of the most costly transfer errors in the history of the English game.

But for that four year period at Arsenal, Alexis Sánchez was as deadly as it is possible to be in the Premier League.

Still though, no individual awards were forthcoming.

Didier Drogba

The pièce de résistance of this remarkably ridiculous list.

Didier Drogba was the scourge of defenders up and down the division during his astonishing eight year spell at Chelea.

You could make a very convincing argument that he is leading the line in an all-time Premier League XI.

You know the rest …