The first major trophy of the English football season will be decided on Sunday when Arsenal take on Manchester City in the EFL Cup final at Wembley.
Both teams will go into the game off the back of defeats against teams they were expected to beat comfortably, with Arsenal slumping to a 2-1 home loss to Ostersunds in the Europa League and Man City seeing their quadruple hopes spectacularly ended at the hands of League One Wigan Athletic.
City remain in the hunt for three trophies, though, and Pep Guardiola could pick up his first silverware at the club with victory on Sunday, whereas Arsene Wenger is bidding to get his hands on the only major trophy which has so far eluded him in England.
Here, Sports Mole has selected the strongest combined XI from both teams, using only players available for this weekend's match.
Manchester City unsurprisingly dominate the team, starting in goal where Ederson is selected ahead of Petr Cech and David Ospina - the latter of whom is expected to play on Sunday. Cech was once the best goalkeeper in English football and will go down as an all-time great, but Ederson has been hugely impressive since arriving at City and looks to be the complete package.
In defence, the clear pick is Nicolas Otamendi, who is enjoying a brilliant campaign for Pep Guardiola's side so far this season. Nacho Monreal is also a fairly easy inclusion due to Man City's current problems at left-back, with the Spaniard also having established himself as a very real goal threat since switching back to the left side of defence. Kyle Walker edges out competition from Hector Bellerin at right-back, but the most difficult decision comes in the other centre-back slot. John Stones, Aymeric Laporte and Laurent Koscielny are all pushing for a place in the team, but Shkodran Mustafi has been a rare bright point in an otherwise leaky defence this season, with no Arsenal player having averaged more tackles, interceptions, clearances or blocks than the Germany international this season.
There are more difficult decisions to come in midfield, most notably the omission of David Silva. It is very tight between the Spaniard and Mesut Ozil, but the Arsenal man has once again made more key passes than any other player in the Premier League this season and, with the Man City players around him, could do real damage in this team. Kevin De Bruyne is close behind Ozil in terms of key passes per game this season and would walk into any combined XI at the moment, while Fernandinho is also a clear choice ahead of Granit Xhaka as the holding midfielder.
It is an all-Man City front three too, with Henrikh Mkhitaryan and Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang among the Arsenal players to miss out. The form of Raheem Sterling, Leroy Sane and Sergio Aguero cannot be ignored, though, with the trio having scored 60 goals between them already this season. Sane has only recently returned from injury, but he has registered seven goals and 10 assists in the Premier League this season so is likely to make a swift return to the first team when he is fully fit.
Read Sports Mole's full match preview of Sunday's Wembley showdown here.
Barney Corkhill
