The best Premier League back-up XI features Arsenal trio and £131.5m ostracised forward line

Pep Guardiola chucking out a ludicrously expensive second string to lose to Leverkusen got us thinking: what is the best possible Premier League back-up XI?

Only one Manchester City player actually makes it into our selection, which is comprised strictly of back-up options. That means no-one who has been rotated in and out of the side. We want those who, all things being equal, are currently staring up in the pecking order.

Hugo Ekitike? Not a back-up. Another Liverpool forward soon to be mentioned? Very much a back-up.

GOALKEEPER: Aaron Ramsdale

A contentious option to start, with the closest competition coming from Liverpool and Manchester City. And perhaps there are flavour-of-the-month vibes to picking Ramsdale, who is the back-up keeper du jour following Nick Pope’s struggles.

But Ramsdale is also just an obviously good keeper whose career extremes have made it difficult to identify his true level. He might not be the Champions League-adjacent Premier League runner-up he became at Arsenal, yet he clearly isn’t the sort of player who should have been relegated in his last three seasons away from the Emirates.

There is a middle ground in which he exists and Newcastle is one of the better places to underline that. His chance should come soon.

RIGHT-BACK: Benjamin White

Mikel Arteta felt White “probably was our best player” in pre-season and has promised “he will have minutes to play” after being sidelined first through injury and then by the brilliance of Jurrien Timber.

White is not the first player to harshly yet justifiably lose his place in the starting line-up during this Arsenal transformation. As obviously good as he is, Timber is a better and slightly more rounded fit.

Yet only five players have ever featured more under Arteta and there is a clear belief White can be trusted when needed. It could be soon, with Timber at mild risk of being run into the actual ground.

CENTRE-BACK: Cristhian Mosquera

There is a risk of this becoming an Arsenal second XI with one of their former players between the sticks. They do have comfortably the best back-up side in the Premier League so it would make sense.

But that strength in depth is most present in defence, where Mosquera can be trusted to thrive at Anfield after being chucked on five minutes in at the age of 21.

Arsenal have come a long way from the days of Rob actual Holding being next in line.

CENTRE-BACK: Piero Hincapie

Where will the Andrea Berta statue even go?

LEFT-BACK: Lewis Hall

The issue with the ‘back-up’ delineation is arguably most evident with Hall, whose injuries make it difficult to accurately assess his standing in the Newcastle squad.

It is likely that, when able and available to play two or three times a week, Hall will again settle into the role of reliable starter and largely overlooked England left-back option.

But Eddie Howe is also Eddie Howe and so Hall’s fitness might not be the most important consideration while Dan Burn exists.

CENTRAL MIDFIELD: Kobbie Mainoo

Ruben Amorim appears to have successfully navigated the minefield created by ostracising Mainoo and, as a result, completely tanking the transfer value of a player Manchester United will not be able to resist the temptation to sell.

Mainoo has played 260 minutes all season, starting against only Grimsby in the League Cup, but the narrative has largely moved on. A starter for England in the Euro 2024 final will play no part in the conversation over the 2026 World Cup squad. Largely because he is apparently not as good as Manuel Ugarte.

READ: ‘Ambling’ Luke Shaw among five Man Utd players doomed in 2026

CENTRAL MIDFIELD: Andrey Santos

In an exceptional example of BlueCo Chelsea nonsense, Santos has emerged as a legitimately excellent midfield option having signed during the reign of Graham Potter.

The Brazilian was sent on loan a couple of months later, returning to rather inexplicably find Frank Lampard in the hotseat. Then by the time he came back from six months at Nottingham Forest, it was Mauricio Pochettino calling the shots. A season and a half with Strasbourg later, Enzo Maresca was presiding over a quite ridiculous squad.

And Santos has his place within it. Not ahead of Moises Caicedo or Enzo Fernandez, but high enough in the pecking order to be trusted starting the odd Premier League game or making cameos against Barcelona.

RIGHT-WING: Federico Chiesa

Seventeen players have been given more minutes, yet only four have more combined goals and assists for Liverpool this season than Chiesa, who does seem to possess whatever the opposite of Arne Slot’s nudes are. Pictures of Arne Slot fully clothed? Or with hair? The Dutchman is not taking the threats of blackmail seriously either way.

Chiesa was initially omitted from the club’s Champions League squad and ranks fifth for the most Premier League minutes of any player yet to start a game in the competition this season. That is a list Mainoo tops ahead of Ethan Nwaneri, Omari Hutchinson and Vitaly Janelt, and not one a 28-year-old Italy international wishes to find himself on in a World Cup year.

Despite being as productive in front of goal as Florian Wirtz and Alexander Isak put together, Chiesa remains on the periphery.

ATTACKING MIDFIELD: Omar Marmoush

In his first 22 games of a half-season after he joined Manchester City in January, Marmoush scored eight goals and assisted three. Fourteen appearances have followed, in which he has both scored and assisted only once each.

A player whose performances seemed to imply a level of talent able to embrace at least some of the burden placed on Erling Haaland’s shoulders has come to represent Manchester City’s collective impotence without the Nordic goalbot.

Pep Guardiola has praised Marmoush for his “patience” but injury and a drip-feed of minutes has killed the Egyptian’s momentum after a glittering start to Premier League life.

LEFT-WING: Mathys Tel

Perhaps in a show of solidarity with disgruntled supporters, it has emerged that Tel is ‘unhappy’ at Spurs.

Not sure why. Could be his exclusion from the club’s Champions League squad, or the fact that despite only four teammates having scored more goals this season, he remains a distinctly unfancied option in an absurdly limited attack.

Only Richarlison and Micky van de Ven have scored more Premier League goals than the forward Spurs signed from Bayern Munich for £30m. What a sad sentence.

CENTRE-FORWARD: Liam Delap

By our calculations, the only Chelsea player who entirely shunned long sleeves against Barcelona. And because the spirit of Barclays which flows irrevocably through his veins clearly provides enough warmth, of course he sodding scored.

Delap does have more world champion medals and red cards than goals in the Premier League for Chelsea, but it must be preferable to ploughing the most lonely of furrows for Ipswich.