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Monday Night Football Awards: Jamie Carragher and Gary Neville name their team of the season

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Jamie Carragher and Gary Neville named their team of the season and dished out their end-of-season awards during the final Monday Night Football of the season.

For their Premier League best XI, the Sky Sports pundits agreed on nine players in their line-ups but could not decide on the final two spots at centre back and centre forward.

In the end, Carragher picked Arsenal defender Laurent Koscielny to partner John Terry at the heart of his defence, while Neville reunited the Chelsea back four by selecting Gary Cahill alongside Terry, Branislav Ivanovic and Cesar Azpilicueta.

In attack, the boys could not agree either as Carragher picked Tottenham striker Harry Kane but Neville prefered another player from the champions in Diego Costa.

Here's how their teams of the season line-up...

MNF Team of the Season
Image: The MNF Team of the Season

Jamie Carragher’s Team of the Season: De Gea, Ivanovic, Koscielny, Terry, Azpilicueta, Sanchez, Fabregas, Matic, Hazard, Kane, Aguero.

Gary Neville’s Team of the Season: De Gea, Ivanovic, Cahill, Terry, Azpilicueta, Sanchez, Fabregas, Matic, Hazard, Costa, Aguero.

The duo also had their say on the following awards:

MNF season awards
Image: The MNF season awards

Player of the Year

Chelsea's Eden Hazard celebrates after missing his penalty but scoring with the rebound header during the Barclays Premier League match at Stamford Bridge,
Image: Eden Hazard was Carragher and Neville's standout player

Carragher: He's won the two player of the year awards, so it's got to be Eden Hazard. He’s been the best player in the league by a long way. He was asked to go up a level last season by Jose Mourinho in some of his defensive work and in parts of his attacking play. I think he’s done that and it’s shown in the two player of the year awards he’s got.

Neville: We both agree the best player in the league is Eden Hazard. Now he’s got to go up again. That can’t be the end for Hazard. He’s now got to get to the Arjen Robben levels and the Gareth Bale levels to score more goals. He should be aiming that high with his talent.

Young Player of the Year

David De Gea, heavily linked with Real Madrid in recent days, enjoyed the goal
Image: David De Gea was named the top young player

Neville: It's David De Gea for both of us. There’s lot of speculation about whether he’ll be at Manchester United next season. They’ve invested a lot of time in him as a young goalkeeper who had big problems but so many times this season, he’s made incredible saves. He’s been absolutely outstanding.

Newcomer of the Year

Alexis Sanchez curls a direct free-kick towards the Stoke goal
Image: Alexis Sanchez is the best newcomer, according to Carragher

Carragher: Alexis Sanchez. He’s actually got 24 goals in all competitions and he’s not someone who takes penalties either so he’s had a huge impact. He was brought in to play wide left, wide right and centre forward. He’s predominantly been playing wide left and you think of Thierry Henry and what he went on to achieve at Arsenal. He got 26 goals in his first season as a centre forward. Sanchez has done it from the left-hand side and I think he’s perfectly suited to our league. I’m still sick Liverpool never got him.

Neville: We’ve just named De Gea as our young player of the year but it just seems crazy we are not celebrating Thibaut Courtois. He has been absolutely brilliant this season. He’s won three championships in three different countries in the last few seasons and for me he’s the type of 'keeper I’d love to be a defender in front of. He's an absolutely brilliant player and I think Chelsea have got an outstanding goalkeeper for the next 10 years.

Manager of the Year

Ronald Koeman
Image: Ronald Koeman collects the manager of the year prize

Carragher: I've gone for Ronald Koeman. He’s the manager I picked halfway through the season. He made a great start and you’ve just got to go back to the start of the season to see the players that they lost, the players that came in and all the talk of relegation. They were good defensively under Mauricio Pochettino but you can see Southampton are a well-coached team and it’s down to the work Koeman has done. They are just behind Chelsea with their defensive record and that shows the work of Koeman on the training ground.

Neville: I've gone for Koeman as well but for different reasons. If you think about the end of last season, Southampton lost their front three. They lost Jay Rodriguez to injury and Rickie Lambert and Adam Lallana to Liverpool but whatever front three he has played this season, they’ve got attacking organisation. Attacking organisation is something I like as much as defensive organisation and with Southampton, you get it.

Goal of the season

Charlie Adam shapes to shoot from his own half against Chelsea
Image: Charlie Adam shapes to shoot from his own half against Chelsea

Carragher: I’m going for Charlie Adam against Chelsea. When we all saw it, it was a 'wow' moment in the season. This is something Charlie tries two or three times a game. He normally gets it wrong but to hit a shot like that against the champions, especially against Courtois... It’s my goal of the season.

Neville: My goal is not even in the top 10 of our shortlist, believe it or not! You see a lot of these shots from distance every year. But Chelsea's goal at Crystal Palace is the goal I like; it's perfection for a team goal. You have everybody involved. You’ve got strength, you’ve got dribbles, you’ve got team play and you’ve got movements from full-backs. So many things can go wrong in this goal. You don’t see many goals like that. It’s brilliant team play and I’m saying it’s the goal of the season because technically it’s something that I like.

Here are the rest of the contenders for MNF goal of the season...

Enner Valencia v Hull

Angel Di Maria v Leicester

Phil Jagielka v Liverpool

Charlie Austin v Southampton

Graziano Pelle v QPR

Philippe Coutinho v Southampton

Matty Phillips v Crystal Palace

Juan Mata v Liverpool

Bobby Zamora v West Brom

Jermain Defoe v Newcastle

Moment of the Season

Juan Mata scores his second goal against Liverpool at Anfield
Image: Juan Mata scores his second goal against Liverpool at Anfield

Carragher: I’ve gone for Cesc Fabregas in the first Monday Night Football of the season against Burnley. He’d been brought in because they lacked creativity, especially against small teams away from home and the pass from Fabregas is the pass of the season but also the moment because as soon as you saw it, you thought 'that’s why he bought him. That’s why he’s spent that money on Cesc Fabregas'.

Neville: Manchester United and Liverpool were locked together when they met at Anfield. Liverpool had not lost a game in 13 and United had not been too good up until this point. This was a big moment in the season. The top three were already sorted and it was between these two clubs for fourth. United put in the best performance I’ve seen from them at Anfield in the first half an hour of a game, and it was Juan Mata who started it off for them. It was my big moment of the season in terms of deciding that fourth spot and it was one of United’s best performances I’ve seen at Anfield in 20 years.

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