Van Dijk, Hazard & Aguero lead EPL Team of the Decade as Bale & Kante included

A number of the game's biggest stars have graced the English top-flight over the past 10 years, but who did enough to make this Team of the Decade?

The 2010s will hold plenty of special memories for football fans, given that Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo were playing at their peak.

Those two were doing unbelievable things week in, week out and had a fierce rivalry while playing for the two biggest clubs in Europe. 

In the Premier League, there were plenty of famous moments to remember too.

England may not have had Messi and Ronaldo, but the last 10 years have seen huge stars turn out in the top flight.

With just a few months of 2019 left, we've decided to create the Premier League's 'Team of the Decade' - Check it out below: 

Goalkeeper: David de Gea

His aura has faded slightly over the past couple of years as if the burden of single-handedly saving Manchester United has begun to take a certain toll, but his overall contribution over the course of the decade has been superb.

After joining United in the summer of 2011 as a somewhat callow 20-year-old, not quite ready for the demands of the English game or for the responsibility of replacing the great Edwin van der Sar, he not only matured into a peerless shot-stopper but developed the kind of aura that only the very best goalkeepers have.

He has nothing of Ederson’s or Alisson’s confidence with the ball at his feet, but that has never really been required of him in a United side that doesn’t cherish possession in the same way the best modern teams do. 

A recent drop-off in form is a nagging concern — he certainly hasn’t been the most impressive goalkeeper in the Premier League this year — but, as bleak as the post-Ferguson years have been at Old Trafford, they would have been far, far worse without De Gea.

Right-back: Branislav Ivanovic

In some ways, the right-back was probably the toughest choice of the lot. Trent Alexander-Arnold’s emergence over the past couple of seasons puts him right in the mix along with Pablo Zabaleta, Kyle Walker, Cesar Azpilicueta and Ivanovic.

In fact, Walker has been chosen in the PFA’s Premier League team of the season three times over the decade. 

It will not be the most popular choice because, as an attacking outlet, he could not hold a candle to Alexander-Arnold or indeed Walker, but his consistency during his nine years at Chelsea was unrivalled. Even more consistent than Azpilicueta or City-era Zabaleta, which is saying something.

Central defender: Vincent Kompany

This was probably the most straightforward selection in this line-up. It has not been a golden age for central defenders, or indeed for courageous on-pitch leadership, so Kompany stood out a mile in a decade in which — to get an explanation in early — the sands of time soon caught up with the hitherto excellent Rio Ferdinand, Nemanja Vidic and John Terry.

To describe Kompany as one of the cornerstones of Manchester City’s success would probably be an understatement. 

As a defender and as a captain, his influence was enormous — not just on the pitch, but behind the scenes and on the training ground among a group of players who could not always rely on the contrasting figures of Roberto Mancini or Manuel Pellegrini to press their buttons.

Injuries limited his impact in the second half of the decade, but, no matter how much money City spend on alternatives, it was always striking how much more solid and dependable they looked with “The President” at the heart of the defence.

Central defender: Virgil van Dijk

I was tempted to go with Jan Vertonghen, another Belgian, alongside Vincent Kompany. He is, after all, in his eighth season at Tottenham Hotspur and, at least until a recent drop-off, has been one of the most consistent defenders in the Premier League over that period.

I considered Terry, just ahead of Ferdinand and Vidic, because the former England captain was still young enough — and good enough — to play a huge part in Chelsea's 2014-15 title-winning team (and even played a smaller part two years later). 

But I’ve gone with Van Dijk because his performance level at Liverpool has been astounding, as has the transformative effect he has had on a team that was woefully short of composure and resilience in defence before his arrival.

He had two very good seasons at Southampton before that — the less said of his final months at St Mary’s, the better — and, while four years of excellence is no match for the longevity of Terry, Ferdinand and Vidic, their best form came before 2010. The best central defender in the world over the past season and a half? Probably.

Left-back: Gareth Bale

Yes, yes, I know that’s cheating. But bear with me. Left-back was a tough position. If this was a Premier League team of the 21st century, I would go with Ashley Cole ahead of Patrice Evra. But as great as those two players were, their best years came before 2010. 

Leighton Baines’s consistency warrants a mention, and Andy Robertson’s form for Liverpool over the past two years has been marvellous, but I’ve gone in a different direction here, hence Bale.

I know he was almost always used further up the field for Tottenham, but he was so brilliant over those three-and-a-half years before moving to Real Madrid — PFA Player of the Year in 2011 and 2013 — that I found I couldn’t really leave him out of this team. 

And by shoehorning him into this line-up at left-back, I can free up the space for another attacking player.

Central midfielder: N'Golo Kante

Here are the names of some outstanding central midfielders who have appeared in the Premier League since 2010: Gerrard, Lampard, Carrick, Scholes, Fabregas, Vieira. 

Great players, all of them, but it is debatable whether any of them managed produced more than one great season in the Premier League over this decade.

Gerrard’s 2013-14 was a classic Indian summer, after some difficult times with injury, and, while it is correct to say that Carrick was one of the most underappreciated of English footballers.

Yaya Toure was brilliant at his best, but there were also periods when he looked like a passenger in the Manchester City midfield.

You might equally argue that Kante has only had two excellent seasons in the Premier League, but when someone has been the outstanding player for two different clubs in two title-winning campaigns — he won my Footballer of the Year vote in both 2016 and 2017 — the case for his inclusion is hard to resist. Fernandinho is worth a mention too.

Central midfield: David Silva

This was a no-brainer — as with Kompany, an entirely straightforward selection. Between Mata, Eriksen, Coutinho, Nasri, Pogba, Ozil and De Bruyne, there have been some high-class creative talents in the Premier League over the course of this decade, but, in terms of long-term impact, Silva has proved to be a class above.

What a wonderful, mesmerising, intelligent player. If anything, I prefer the late-career Silva – converted to a deeper, central role by Guardiola, who immediately saw him as Manchester City’s answer to Iniesta – to the one who, in his previous role as a wide player or a No 10, created so many goals under Mancini and Pellegrini. 

Picking him in a two-man central midfield here might be a bit of a stretch, but a) this team is purely hypothetical and b) it allows me to use the joke that the Leicester coaching staff used to make about the indefatigable Kante, who could, of course, be relied upon to play either side of Silva.

Right-wing: Raheem Sterling

This is perhaps where things start to get very agitated in the comments section — if they haven’t already. 

No, Sterling hasn’t had an individual season quite like Salah’s 2017-18 campaign, but he has performed at extremely high level over the past two-and-a-half seasons for Manchester City and his contributions as a teenager at Liverpool should not be underestimated either.

It is extremely uplifting to reflect on the progress Sterling has made over the course of a decade which he began as a 15-year-old at Queens Park Rangers’ academy before moving on to Liverpool, where he became a first-team regular at the age of 17 and made some huge contributions to their title challenge in 2013/14.

Then came that acrimonious £50 million transfer to City, where, after an uncertain start under Pellegrini, he has flourished spectacularly under Guardiola. 

He looked far from a natural goalscorer in those early days, but he has now scored more than 100 goals at senior club level and has finally begun to demonstrate his talent on the international stage too.

Left-wing: Eden Hazard

If Real Madrid’s supporters are wondering what all the fuss is about, they only need recall the highlights reel that was shown to them at the Bernabeu on the day of Hazard’s presentation in June. 

There were two spectacular goals at Sunderland, near-identical first-time curlers against Liverpool and Tottenham at the same end of Stamford Bridge, a couple of stunning solo efforts at Anfield and another famous one at home to Arsenal as Chelsea took firm control of the Premier League title race in 2016-17.

A player should not be judged purely on “moments” — and, yes, there were a couple of prolonged dips in form during his time at Chelsea — but he was arguably the most exciting player in English football this decade. 

There remains the nagging suspicion within the game that he does not have quite the driven personality to be able to scale even greater heights, and his early struggle to adapt to the intensity of life at Real is not altogether surprising, but, on his day, there is almost no one better.

Centre-forward: Sergio Aguero

Come on. We can all agree on this one, can’t we? Aguero has only won the Premier League’s golden boot once and has only appeared in the PFA’s team of the season twice, but, when it comes to picking a team of the decade, he is surely a shoo-in.

Since becoming Manchester City’s all-time record goalscorer two years ago, he has continued his rapid rise up the Premier League rankings, where his total of 173 goals has taken him to sixth place, on the verge of overhauling both Frank Lampard and Thierry Henry. 

From the moment he launched his City career with two goals against newly-promoted Swansea on a warm Monday night in August 2011, he has never really looked back.

Centre-forward: Harry Kane

Time to put the tin hat on, but I actually think Kane, like Aguero, is underappreciated in England. Ever since the initial sense of hype and wonder wore off, there has been a tendency to take his goalscoring exploits for granted. 

For the record, he has scored 132 goals for Tottenham and now, at the age of 26, lies 13th in the Premier League’s all-time list.

Those figures are all the more impressive given that, having not scored his first Premier League goal until three months before his 21st birthday, he was far from a Rooney-esque teenage prodigy. 

Talking of Wayne Rooney, there would be a case for him, but the decade in which he became Manchester United’s and England’s all-time record goalscorer was not the decade that saw the best of his talent. 

Similar can be said of Didier Drogba. Luis Suarez was unplayable at times, but his turbulent Liverpool career was too brief to win my vote. Jamie Vardy and, in particular, Robin van Persie warranted serious consideration, but, in terms of sustained impact this decade, neither can match Kane.

Premier League Team of the Decade