An incredible XI of Premier League cult heroes that is too Barclays to function
The Barclays era of the Premier League is cemented in football heritage. A perfect recipe that was one part 45-yard bangers, one part baggy shirts, two parts toxic paparazzi culture, and three parts banter.
Officially it spanned from 2001 to 2016, but Barclays is a state of mind. It’s a zeitgeist thing. Some players simply ooze Barclays, and we must apologise to some of them now for not including them in our Barclays XI: Niko Kranjcar, Jay-Jay Okocha, Geovanni, Tugay, Elano, Benjani… We’re sorry. This game is all about making difficult decisions and that’s just the way it goes.
Come with us now, stick U2’s Beautiful Day on your Walkman, dust off your Total 90 Lasers, and go on a nostalgic walk down Barclays Lane with the ultimate Barclays XI. Oh, and we will be playing four, four, f*cking two.
GK: Jussi Jaaskelainen
Bolton royalty, is Jussi Jaaskelainen. More umlauts in his name than a Kartoffelnbrot recipe. A name that looks like Morse code. And arguably Bolton Wanderers’ greatest-ever goalkeeper.
The 6’3″ Finnish stopper made a mighty 527 appearances for Bolton across 14 seasons. He was twice their player of the year, and one-time Lion of Vienna Award winner.
We’ve tried our very best to find out what the Lion of Vienna Award is, but all we can find is that it has something to do with Bolton legend Nat Lofthouse. Sounds class, though.
RB: Brett Emerton
We’re sticking the speed merchant from Sydney at right back in our XI. Emerton could play right wing or right back, he came to Blackburn Rovers via Feyenoord, and he was a Championship Manager must-buy.
Let’s be honest, that entire Blackburn squad could fill this XI by themselves (and we might be seeing more of them later), but Emerton is purest Barclays.
CB: Titus Bramble
Titus Malachi Bramble was signed for Newcastle United by the great Bobby Robson.
Barrel-chested, built like a brick sh*thouse, played for both Newcastle and Sunderland, as well as a three-year stint at Wigan Athletic right in the middle of the Barclays era. A lot of boxes being ticked here.
Here’s Bobby’s take on Titus:
“Titus looks like Tyson when he strips off in the dressing-room, except he doesn’t bite and he has a great tackle.”
Open to interpretation, that one. God, we miss Bobby Robson.
CB: Ivan Campo
There is an English indie-folk band, formed in Lancashire in 2004, that had a song featured on an episode of Skins, called Ivan Campo.
If that isn’t enough to get you featured in a Barclays XI, we don’t know what is.
The centre-back/defensive midfielder played 60 La Liga games for Galacticos-era Real Madrid before Big Sam Allardyce’s Bolton snapped him up on an initial loan deal in 2002.
The Spaniard ended up spending the bulk of his career at Bolton, and he and his hair acquired cult hero status.
LB: Matthew Taylor
Portsmouth, Bolton, West Ham. That’s Matthew Taylor’s Barclays-era CV. We haven’t got the data, but Taylor must’ve been nominated for Goal of the Month at least 117 times during his Barclays career.
It felt like every other week he’d score from the halfway line. Less a wand of a left foot, more a grenade launcher.
Taylor is currently the manager of Wealdstone in the National League, and if you want some, he’ll give it ya—pinged at you from 45 yards away.
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RM: Kieron Dyer
Dyer was signed to a turbulent Newcastle side by Ruud Gullit just pre-Barclays. He was then part of a team full of trouble that included Lee Bowyer, Craig Bellamy, Steven Taylor, etc.
There was controversy from an England training camp, there was the time he and the aforementioned Bowyer got sent off for fighting each other after Steven Taylor had gotten himself sent off for making a full-on goalkeeper-style save with his hands in the same game, there were leg breaks, there was the time he got Bobby Robson sacked… Kieron Dyer is a Barclaysman, no doubt about it.
Oh, and he also wore both the champagne & red Predators, and the black and silver original F50s. Delicious.
CM: Jimmy Bullard
TV personality, Soccer AM stalwart, and absolute baller Jimmy Bullard is Wigan and Barclays royalty.
Bullard provides the attacking instincts to our central midfield two, provided that Big Duncan Ferguson isn’t playing for the opposition. If Big Dunc is playing, Bullard drops out of the starting XI because we don’t want him to get eaten.
He was a joker, he was glorious to watch, he was a sort of long-haired cockney Paul Gascoigne. Bullard came up via non-league whilst working as a painter and decorator with his dad, and, despite all of the antics and the stardom, he never forgot that.
In his prime, Bullard told reporters:
“I struggled to get into any sort of team as a kid, but I struggled along and, though it’s amazing how long it has actually taken me, I am finally in the Premiership, and to play against my old mates from West Ham, the team I supported as a boy, was unbelievable.”
Get in our team, Jimmy.
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CM: Papa Bouba Diop
We’re putting the man Mountain himself, The Wardrobe, Papa Bouba Diop in midfield to protect Jimmy Bullard.
A full 6’5″ of pure, hulking, Barclays cult hero muscle. The Senegalese destroyer was adored by Pompey and Fulham fans alike, and, from a tactical viewpoint, he can slot in at centre-back if Ivan Campo goes on a mad one.
Diop tragically died in November 2020 of, according to L’Equipe, motor neurone disease. He lives forever in our Barclays midfield, though. Rest in peace, big man.
LM: Morten Gamst Pedersen
It’s a bit unfair of us having Morten Gamst Pedersen and Matthew Taylor on the left. If the ball goes anywhere near the left-hand side of the pitch, it’s getting tw*tted into the back of the net from wherever these lads happen to be.
Some fun things to know about Blackburn’s Scandi answer to Laurent Robert: MGP is part Sami (indigenous Scandinavian culture), and he was in a boyband full of Norwegian footballers called The Players.
It’s on YouTube, so we just spent three-and-a-half minutes listening to it—it is f*cking appalling.
ST: Michu
You simply have to love Michu. Man was the best striker in the world for exactly one year, then slid back into the obscurity from whence he came.
We say obscurity—he did have a season in La Liga with Rayo Vallecano before Swansea made one of the signings of the century, and he did play three Serie A games on loan at Napoli before he left South Wales.
But either side of that, the Spanish semi-mythical footballer was plying his trade away from the public consciousness.
Michu was loved dearly by Swans fans, and quite right too.
His first season in the Premier League (and Swansea’s second) saw Michu bang in 18 goals in the league, four more in the cups, a victorious League Cup campaign that saw the Swans win a trophy and qualify for the Europa League, and cult Barclaysman status solidified for the man from Oviedo.
ST: Juan Pablo Angel
Former Aston Villa striker with possibly the most South American name imaginable, Juan Pablo Angel was there at the very start of the Barclays era. He joined Villa from River Plate in the very summer that Barclays history began.
Six-and-a-half seasons at Villa saw the Colombian score 62 goals and win the Intertoto Cup, which is an incredibly Barclays thing to do in itself.
In 2007, Angel moved on to MLS, where he was prolific. His son Tomas is also a forward, was born in Birmingham during his dad’s time at Villa, and is currently on loan at Phoenix Rising from LAFC. Kind of like a Temu Erling Haaland.
That’s probably the most horrible thing we’ve ever written about anyone and we don’t mean it. Sorry, Tomas, if you’re reading this.
Rather be a Temu Haaland than a wish.com James Horncastle, and on that self-burn, our Barclays XI is concluded.