Jamie Carragher has named the team that made him feel ‘uncomfortable’ (Photo: Getty)
Liverpool legend Jamie Carragher has named the Arsenal Invincibles as the best team he ever played against, saying he still has ‘nightmares’ about them.
Over a 17-year career, all of which spent at Anfield, the defender came up against some of the greatest sides in Premier League and European football history.
But there was only one that he claims affected him ‘psychologically’, and perhaps unsurprisingly it’s the Arsenal team that won the FA Cup in 2002/03 before going an entire league campaign unbeaten the following season.
‘I came up against some great teams,’ Carragher said on Sky Sports Monday Night Football, where he was joined by Invincibles star Freddie Ljungberg.
‘Manchester United’s treble team, the United of [Cristiano] Ronaldo, [Carlos] Tevez and [Wayne] Rooney, the Chelsea team of [Jose] Mourinho.
‘But I’ve said this consistently, this [Arsenal] team from 2002-04 is the best team I’ve ever played against and the one team I would say affected me psychologically going into games.
‘I felt uncomfortable, didn’t think I was good enough, didn’t feel physically strong, they made me feel smaller and weaker.
Robert Pires, Patrick Vieira and Thierry Henry were key members of Arsenal’s Invincibles (Photo: Getty)
‘Against United you knew they were better than us or Chelsea had the edge on us but you still felt we’d give them a good game. This team did it to me psychologically.’
That Gunners side beat Carragher’s Liverpool both home and away during the Invincible season by a combined score of 6-3, with the former England international playing as a right-back during that time.
‘I actually think playing this Arsenal team as a right back, I’m not sure there was any more difficult positions to play in the world, certainly at that time,’ Carragher added.
‘You’d get [Robert] Pires coming inside, you’d get Thierry Henry spinning out to this side and you’d get Ashley Cole on the overlap. And the reason I’d say this team was the toughest to play against was because things happened so quickly.
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‘That’s the most difficult thing as a defender, you’ve got no time to react. I was an organiser, telling people where to go and organising the team.
‘When you’re playing against a team who play at this pace there’s no time to speak. You can’t pass on information, things are happening so quickly.
‘And I think this area of Pires, Cole, Thierry Henry was devastating. I have nightmares thinking about it.’
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