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The Fantasy Football Club: Matt Le Tissier picks his #One2Eleven

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Southampton goal machine Matt Le Tissier puts pen to paper to pick his #One2Eleven filled completely of Saints players.

Matt has opted for a 4-4-2 formation...

Goalkeeper: Tim Flowers

My old mate. An absolutely superb goalkeeper but also brilliant in the changing room. A real character. Always had great banter. Whenever you gave him a bit of stick, he’ll always come back with something funnier. I played with some great goalkeepers: Peter Shilton, Bruce Grobbelaar and Dave Beasant, but for me the best was Tim Flowers.

Southampton goalkeeper Tim Flowers
Image: Tim Flowers starts in goal in Matt le Tissier's #One2Eleven

Right-back: Jeff Kenna

I only really played with three right-backs in my whole career. Jerry Forrester was the first when I got in the side, then Jason Dodd and then Jeff. Going forward, he was brilliant and was just a little bit better as a defender than Jason.

Left-back: Derek Statham 

Francis Benali, I apologise right now! Derek was the best footballing left-back I played with. Wayne Bridge also came into consideration for this but as a footballer I’ve never seen a defender who is so calm in situations around the box. He had a brilliant football brain and was a brilliant passer of the ball. If I was a left winger he would be the kind of full-back that I would have wanted to play in front of. However, Benali would get in any team fighting relegation.

Centre-back: Dean Richards

God rest his soul – bless him. We got him from Wolves and there was question marks about his fitness, people said he had dodgy knees and sometimes he’d train you’d think ‘how is he going to get through a game on a Saturday?’ But he did and he was phenomenally consistent. He gets in just in front of Claus Lundekvam.

Dean Richards Southampton
Image: Dean Richards was 'phenomenally consistent', according to Le Tiss

Centre-back: Mark Wright

Wrighty was a footballing centre back. He came from Oxford and didn’t look much like a defender as he was stick thin but as a centre-back he read the game brilliantly well. He also didn’t mind a little dribble. He then went to Liverpool and I turned him inside out and he hasn’t spoken to me since!

Right Wing: Danny Wallace

Danny was already in the first-team when I was an apprentice. He was one of those players I would go and watch the games and watch him. Whenever he got to within 30 yards of goal, as a spectator, you would think ‘what’s going to happen here?’ because he had that electric pace and could go past people at the drop of a hat. I didn’t watch a lot of professional football growing up in Guernsey and feeling what happened to the crowd when Wallace got the ball, that’s what I wanted to do when I got on the pitch. 

Centre Midfield: Jimmy Case

He was always on my case but he was doing it to make me better. He was encouraging me in a way but was having a go at me to get involved in the game. He would go out of his way to give me the ball if I wasn’t involved in the game. He was a brilliant leader and you’d want him in your team. He was like our minder, if anyone took us out of the game he would give them one a couple of minutes later when the referee wasn’t watching.

Le Tissier:
Image: Matt Le Tissier received Athletic Bilbao's 'One Club Man' award

Centre Midfield: Ronnie Ekelund

A lot of people outside Southampton may not remember Ronnie too well but he was brought in by Alan Ball at the start of the 1994/95 season and that season was my favourite of my whole career. One of the main reasons why is because of the relationship I struck up with Ronnie. From the very first training session, we were on the same wavelength. I’m not being disrespectful, but that didn’t happen very often. He almost though the same way that I thought and from day one we got on brilliantly. He was the most talented footballer I played with at Southampton.

Left Wing: Rodney Wallace

Rodney was the most underrated players I have played with. He should have been knocking on the door of the England squad. He made a lot of my passes look very good. He was so quick. Early in my career we would play as a front three with Rodney, me and Alan Shearer. We didn’t play as wingers, we would cut in all the time and me and Rodney would score all the goals, Alan would be the one crossing the balls. If I was in a tight situation I knew I could put the ball in a certain area and if Rodney had seven or eight yards to make up he was going to get there first. 

English footballer Alan Shearer of Southampton FC, 7th March 1992. (Photo by Simon Bruty/Getty Images)
Image: Alan Shearer makes Le Tissier's #One2Eleven

Striker: Alan Shearer

To score a hat-trick on your debut against Arsenal, against people like Tony Adams, was incredible and he went on from strength to strength. He got better when he left Southampton. He didn’t score a bagful of goals for us but when he left, they basically told him not to move outside the 18-yard box and Blackburn just supplied him with crosses. A phenomenal footballer.

Striker: Marian Pahars  

The Latvian Michael Owen! None of us knew anything about him when he turned up but from the first training session we soon saw that this boy could play. I’d never seen a player who was better than Peter Beagrie at checking back, but he was. He would turn defenders so quickly. He scored one at Old Trafford when he nutmegged Jaap Stam and then put one in the bottom corner.

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