COACH:

NUNO Espírito Santo (born in Cape Verde)




GOALKEEPERS:

Arthur RILEY
Bruce GROBBELAAR


DEFENDERS:

LAUREN
Joel MATIP
Kolo TOURÉ
Joseph YOBO
Celestine BABAYARO
Lucas RADEBE
Eddie STUART


MIDFIELDERS:

Yaya TOURÉ
Michael ESSIEN
Victor WANYAMA
John Obi MIKEL
Jay-Jay OKOCHA
Cheikhou KOUYATÉ
Steven PIENAAR


ATTACKERS:

Riyad MAHREZ
Wilfried ZAHA
Didier DROGBA
Mohamed SALAH
Pierre-Emerick AUBAMEYANG
Sadio MANÉ
Gordon HODGSON



__________________________________________________________


RESERVES:


GOALKEEPERS:

Édouard MENDY


DEFENDERS:

Sébastien BASSONG
Christopher SAMBA
Emmanuel EBOUÉ
Serge AURIER


MIDFIELDERS:

Cheik TIOTÉ
Victor MOSES
Wilfred NDIDI
Idrissa GUEYE


ATTACKERS:

Tony YEBOAH
Nwankwo KANU
Berry NIEUWENHUYS
Emmanuel ADEBAYOR

I believe the English First Division had more African players with solid spells. Some names for the reserves are Eddie Firmani, Stuart Leary, Eddie Stuart, maybe Peter Ndlovu, Benni McCarthy, Abdoulaye Doucouré, El Hadji Diouf, Shola Ameobi, Yakubu, Alex Song, Jordan Ayew. The may not be on the same level of the players in the first team, but just to fill the reserves.

I wanted to keep the formats the same, but you could expand this one for sure. The problem is that there are plenty of forwards for the reserves, but the defenders and even midfielders would be a much lower quality, you'd be getting into players with less than 50 appearances.

I did forget about Eddie Stuart and Stuart Leary, Eddie Stuart can definitely enter the first team ahead of Aurier and probably starting XI ahead of Lauren (don't know about this one, Lauren was a strong member of the invincible Arsenal team). Stuart Leary spent most of his time in the second division, he did score 76 goals in the first division though so he's certainly a candidate. I picked Yeboah over others that played more because he was exceptional in the short time he was here and is one of the most iconic Africans in English football. But there's definitely others that had longer careers in England.

I initially had Eddie Firmani in the reserves but I decided against him because he capped for Italy and not for South Africa. So I decided to keep the qualifications the same. If he had capped for South Africa like Hodgson did (who also played for England), I certainly would have included him. I also considered Craig Johnston to be Australian, since he was raised there by two Australian parents, despite being born in South Africa.

Gana was certainly better than both Mikel and Wanyama, there's no way that he can be in the reserves because he played "only" for Everton.

I wouldn't consider Yaya Touré as corner taker at all, he's tall and a physical imposing (with a relative decent aerial threat) person, it would be basically like Kane taking corners for England at the 2016 Euro just because he's the playmaker on the starting eleven.

I thought that was the reason. Take in mind though that Firmani played in the First Division as a South African player.

IMO Wanyama's best three seasons were just as good as Gana's, he was a rock before the injuries hit. And I think Wanyama was a more complete player, Gana is very limited although good at what he does, which is just winning the ball back and nothing else.

I don't think Mikel was a worse player either, he just sacrificed himself to play a squad role at Chelsea. He was a really quite talented player, who was forced into defensive positions because Chelsea had Lampard and Ballack in front of him. And while you could never say he was a very important player for Chelsea, he certainly played a part in their success, and at his peak he was a good and consistent player. He also has almost twice as many PL games as Gana. To be honest, Gana is/was a good player but I don't think he would ever be able to play almost 400 games for a top club like Mikel did. Even in an easier league with PSG he didn't have what it takes, he's just too limited with the ball.

Yaya is on the corners because he's the best long passer there, to be honest I don't really pay attention to set piece takers, in game I just put whoever the game tells me to and I put them on both sides. Same thing with left and right sided CBs, I don't really care much. Salah takes corners for Liverpool sometimes, you can choose him I guess.