Northern Ireland v Luxembuourg (05/09/2024)

Andy Greeves invites former Northern Ireland internationals to choose their best 11. The line-up can include players past and present and not necessarily former team-mates. Here Paul McVeigh chooses his squad… PAUL M C VEIGH’S BEST XI

GK – ROB GREEN His ruthless dedication and desire to be the best he could be really shone for me. When I was at Norwich with him, he was pretty much first in and last out at training every day. LB – ADAM DRURY Adam was captain at Norwich City when we won the First Division title in 2004 and got promoted to the Premier League. I spent a lot of my time at Norwich on the left wing with Adam behind me, which gave me the confidence to get forward. CB – SOL CAMPBELL Sol was immense in every sense of the word – the biggest, toughest, hardest, fastest defender you could come up against. He was part of the Arsenal ‘Invincibles’ team. A world class player. CB – AARON HUGHES What a career Aaron had. He was in the Newcastle first team from the age of 18 and obviously he went on to play hundreds of matches in the Premier League and over 100 times for Northern Ireland. He was a Rolls-Royce of a player. RB – STEPHEN CARR Stephen Carr was an exceptional player. I remember Spurs-Manchester United matches during my time at Tottenham and Stephen Carr always dealt so well with Ryan Giggs. LM – DAVID GINOLA I was at Spurs with David Ginola. I never played a competitive first team match with him, but from training with him alone he’d have to make my team. David was just incredible with his ability to keep running past players with absolute ease. CM – WES HOOLAHAN I had a season with Wes at Norwich City. He was in my top three in terms of the most technically gifted players I played with during my career. There weren’t many players around in that era who could do the sort of things with a football that Wes could.

CM – PHIL MULRYNE Having played with him for almost two decades, Phil Mulryne has to go into my midfield. Phil had a bit of everything. He could dribble, he could score goals and he was an incredible passer of the ball. RM – DARREN ANDERTON Darren Anderton was possibly as good technically as David Beckham but didn’t have the same profile. For that reason some people might not have appreciated quite how good ‘Shaggy’ was. FW – TEDDY SHERINGHAM I made my professional debut for Tottenham alongside him and what a player he was. He won the Premier League Golden Boot at Tottenham and went on to win the treble at Manchester United. Teddy was such an intelligent player. FW – DEAN ASHTON It’s such a shame that Dean had to retire at the age of 26 due to injury. I believe he would have become a top class striker for club and country if that injury hadn’t happened. SUBS JURGEN KLINSMANN – I’m going for attacking players on my bench and there aren’t many better than Jurgen Klinsmann. DARREN HUCKERBY – Phenomenal during my time at Norwich City. DION DUBLIN – Dion was a class centre forward. CRAIG BELLAMY – He was immense during his time at Norwich. LES FERDINAND – An incredible finisher.

IRISHFA.COM

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