Arsenal ‘the worst team to win the league’? Two Man Utd sides, Gunners and Liverpool contradict Scholes

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·29 January 2026

Arsenal ‘the worst team to win the league’? Two Man Utd sides, Gunners and Liverpool contradict Scholes

Manchester United legend Paul Scholes should know better than anyone that the idea Arsenal ‘could be the worst team to win the Premier League’ is nonsense.

The dust having settled from his clash with Lisandro Martinez, Scholes has since decided to take on the entire Arsenal fanbase with a pop at the current league leaders and favourites.

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“If you’re thinking of picking a team of the season and picking the front four, nobody from the Arsenal team gets in that,” he said, echoing the sentiments of Jamie Carragher.

“When have you ever seen a team at the top of the table, who have been top by six or seven points, but if you were picking the best team of the Premier League so far, you wouldn’t have one of their players in the front four?” the Sky Sports pundit asked after Arsenal were beaten by Manchester United at the Emirates.

“That is not normal, that would never happen. The best team in the league would always have at least one, maybe two players [forwards], in the team of the season,” he added.

May we introduce both Scholes and Carragher to Manchester City in the two seasons prior to Erling Haaland’s arrival, when their top-scoring league forwards were a) Raheem Sterling with ten goals, b) Raheem Sterling with 13 goals, and c) not Harry Kane, Mo Salah, Sadio Mane, Heung-min Son or indeed any forward who would get into the team of the season.

Scholes in particular ought to know that Arsenal, 25 points off the lowest Premier League-winning tally ever set by Manchester United in 1997, with 15 games remaining, would not “be the worst team to win the league” whatsoever. They have five PFA Player of the Year candidates; they’re quite good.

These English top-flight champions who only had a single representative in that season’s PFA Team of the Year certainly contradict Scholes and his ilk.

Manchester United, 2002/03

Perhaps it is unrealistic to expect that Scholes always keeps his 2002/03 PFA Team of the Year place at the forefront of his mind while engaging in that week’s thoughtful, considered punditry with Nicholas Butt and Patrick McGuiness, but it is also funny that he is so central to the most recent counter to his own argument.

Manchester United won the title in 2002/03 but boasted neither the Player of the Year (Thierry Henry), nor Young Player of the Year (Jermaine Jenas), with Manager of the Year Sir Alex Ferguson and Golden Boot winner Ruud van Nistelrooy proving the difference.

But it was Scholes who carried the Team of the Year flag for Manchester United alone as tap-in merchant Van Nistelrooy was overlooked. He will take solace from finally putting his Henry feud to one side.

Runners-up Arsenal had five players – Sol Campbell, Ashley Cole, Robert Pires, Patrick Vieira and Henry – make the XI, while a couple of stars for third-placed Newcastle in Kieron Dyer and Alan Shearer were voted in.

Manchester United had as many players in there as fourth-placed Chelsea (William Gallas), Blackburn (Brad Friedel) down in sixth and even bloody tenth-placed Spurs.

How can Scholes sit there with a straight face and say Arsenal “could be the worst team to win the league” when champions Manchester United let Stephen Carr into a Team of the Year?!

Arsenal, 1997/98

The roles had been reversed for Arsenal and Manchester United half a decade prior, when the runners-up claimed a 5-1 win over the title winners in the Team of the Year.

Gary Neville, Gary Pallister, David Beckham, Butt and Ryan Giggs all sat alongside one player each from six different clubs, including Arsenal spokesperson Dennis Bergkamp.

It was the iconic Dutchman‘s best individual season by far in terms of goal return, with 16 scored and 11 assisted in the Premier League alone for the Double winners.

Also sneaking into the XI were Nigel Martyn (Leeds), Colin Hendry (Blackburn), Graeme Le Saux (Chelsea), David Batty (Newcastle) and Michael Owen (Liverpool), making Bergkamp the sole non-British inclusion.

Manchester United, 1995/96

It is safe to assume that woke nonsense kept Eric Cantona out of the 1995/96 Team of the Year. Or perhaps a strikeforce of Les Ferdinand and Alan Shearer, whose respective 25 and 31-goal seasons almost demanded room be made for them.

Beyond the Frenchman it is difficult to see who else might have made it in for the champions. No-one but Cantona scored more than 11 goals, while he also boasted the most assists with ten. Peter Schmeichel definitely had a shout but was pipped by two things: David James of Liverpool; and the normalisation of his own brilliance.

In the end it was only Gary Neville who made the grade at the end of his first full Premier League season, no thanks to Marco Boogers.

Newcastle had three complete bottlers in there (Rob Lee, David Ginola and Ferdinand). Aston Villa filled two spots with Ugo Ehiogu and Alan Wright despite finishing fourth and not having the best defensive record in the division.

Tony Adams (Arsenal), Steve Stone (Nottingham Forest) and Ruud Gullit (Chelsea) rounded out the selection. That has the makings of quite the five-a-side team.

Leeds, 1991/92

In an era when one club dominating the Team of the Year was rare, it was commonplace for seven of eight to have representation in the final XI.

Manchester United (Pallister and Mark Hughes) managed to sneak two players into the final First Division selection ever despite finishing as runners-up, with eighth-placed Forest (Des Walker and Stuart Pearce) matching them.

But clubs finishing anywhere from fifth (Manchester City, Tony Coton) and sixth (Liverpool, Ray Houghton) to 14th, 15th and 16th found their way in back in 1992.

Chelsea had Andy Townsend. Spurs had Gary Lineker. Southampton had Alan Shearer. We would all listen to that podcast. And of course Leeds had Gary McAllister, cited as the key inspiration behind their title win.

Liverpool, 1978/79

It is likely that Liverpool suffered for the European exploits of Nottingham Forest, with Ray Clemence especially unfortunate to miss out to Peter Shilton in the 1978/79 PFA Team of the Year.

Clemence kept 28 clean sheets and conceded an absurd 16 goals in 42 First Division games. Shilton lifted the literal European Cup. Clemence was never out-jumped by Diego Maradona. Swings and roundabouts.

Phil Neal, Graeme Souness and Terry McDermott could make particularly strong cases against their omissions but in the end it was FWA Footballer of the Year Kenny Dalglish who flew the flag alone for Liverpool.

West Brom matched their third-placed finish with three representatives, including two of the Three Degrees in Cyrille Regis and Laurie Cunningham.

Derby, 1974/75

‘I was the manager, the man in charge, who would sink or swim on the success or failure of the players hired. The chairman wouldn’t pay with his job if I failed in mine and it wasn’t his personal money we were spending anyway. ‘Sam Longson was on holiday when I did the deal for what was then regarded as a massive fee of £175,000. I told him nothing about it until I sent a telegram. I can’t recall the exact wording, but it went something like this: ‘Just bought you another great player, Colin Todd. We’re almost bankrupt. Love Brian.’

The inimitable Clough knew he had ‘just signed the best young defender in England, who was about to turn Derby into the best team in the country’.

Todd won the title together with Clough in 1972 before reigning again as Player of the Year – and Team of the Year member – under Dave Mackay three years later.