Premier League Team of the 2010s

With no club managing to retain the Premier League title until the latter part of the 2010s, it was arguably the most competitive decade in the league's history.

Numerous world class players have graced English football during that time.

Here's a look at 90min's Premier League team of the 2010s...

David de Gea (GK)

David de Gea arrived in England as a raw 20-year-old with the enormous task of replacing the retiring Edwin van der Sar at Manchester United. Initially, there is no denying he struggled.

He was named in the 2012/13 PFA Team of the Year, but the Spaniard really started to come into his own 2014. He has been selected for four more PFA Teams of the Year since, making it five for the decade, and at his very best was number one in the world.

De Gea has also been United’s player of the season a record four times.

Kyle Walker (RB)

Kyle Walker has been a Premier League star since 2011 when he made the permanent breakthrough at Tottenham, winning PFA Young Player of the Year for that 2011/12 season.

The speedy defender was part of the Spurs side that rose up the table under the guidance of Mauricio Pochettino, followed by a 2017 move to Manchester City that briefly made him the most expensive full-back in history.

With City, Walker has won back-to-back Premier League titles in historic fashion.

Vincent Kompany (CB)

Vincent Kompany pre-dated the Abu Dhabi era at Manchester City, but as captain and leader who lifted four Premier League trophies during the 2010s he was arguably the symbol of the club’s new found success over the last decade.

The Belgian effectively became an honourary Mancunian during more than 10 years of service.

Always a leader whether he was on the pitch or not, Kompany played key roles in all four of City’s title wins. Yet despite being a defender he also contributed crucial goals directly to two of them, a header against Manchester United in 2012 and a screamer against Leicester in 2019.

Virgil van Dijk (CB)

A Premier League player since 2015 when he moved south of the Scottish border from Celtic, Virgil van Dijk has made an impact like few others ever have.

Liverpool saw fit to pay a world record £75m fee to sign him from Southampton and have seen an incredible boost to what was previously the weakest part of their otherwise strong team.

Van Dijk finished second to only Lionel Messi in the 2019 Ballon d’Or standings and was the first defender since John Terry in 2005 to win PFA Players’ Player of the Year.

Cesar Azpilicueta (LB)

Cesar Azpilicueta has proven over the years that he is capable of playing anywhere across a defensive line, whether it be left-back, right-back or centre-back.

The Spaniard was a relative unknown when Chelsea paid just £7m for him in 2012, yet he has been a bargain capture having never played fewer than 40 games in a full campaign for the club.

Azpilicueta has won Premier League titles in 2014/15 and 2016/17, playing different roles in each, has two Europa League medals, an FA Cup triumph and an EFL Cup win to his name.

David Silva (MF)

There is a case that David Silva was the ultimate catalyst for all the success Manchester City achieved during the 2010s, culminating in those back-to-back Premier League title wins in 2017/18 and 2018/19, during which the team accumulated 198 points.

Silva was among the first marquee signings of the club’s new ownership and is the only surviving player of the landmark FA Cup win in 2010/11.

His continued form in 2017/18 was even more stunning given that son was born prematurely during the season and was fighting to stay alive.

Kevin De Bruyne (MF)

If one player has overshadowed even Silva at Manchester City, it is Kevin De Bruyne.

Few could have expected just how good the Belgian maestro would become after he mercilessly cast aside by an impatient Chelsea in 2014 after only nine appearances. That City only paid around £55m for him from Wolfsburg in the summer of 2015 looks like a steal.

Already astonishingly good, De Bruyne pulled the strings in his club’s 2017/18 ‘Centurions’ season when they became the first side in Premier League history to record 100 points.

N’Golo Kante (MF)

Within two years of joining Leicester as a complete unknown for less than £6m, N’Golo Kante was incredibly a two-time Premier League champion. At the time of his 2015 arrival in England he remarkably only had one season of top flight experience to his name.

Having been a star of Leicester’s fairytale journey, Kante stepped things up to a new level when he moved to Chelsea and scooped PFA, FWA and Premier League awards in 2016/17.

The Frenchman remains one of the best in the world and was a World Cup winner in 2018.

Eden Hazard (MF)

A wide forward rather than a traditional winger, Eden Hazard failed to reach double figures in front of goal in the Premier League only twice in seven years as a Chelsea player – and one of those was his debut season in England in which he still got nine.

Hazard was Chelsea’s X-factor in Premier League title winning seasons in both 2014/15 and 2016/17, while he also won the FA Cup, EFL Cup and two Europa League trophies with the Blues.

He was four-time inclusion in PFA Team of the Year and PFA Players’ Player winner in 2015.

Sergio Aguero (FW)

It is troubling that a player as consistently excellent as Sergio Aguero has been for Manchester City since 2011 didn’t feature in PFA Team of the Year for the first time until 2017/18.

Aguero has scored at least 30 goals in all competitions in each of the last four full seasons and is the Premier League’s all-time leading overseas scorer, as well as City’s all-time leading scorer – the latter already by a considerable distance.

He also scored perhaps the single most famous goal in English football history. You know the one.

Harry Kane (FW)

After largely unsuccessful loan spells at four different lower league clubs, Harry Kane might have been forgiven for thinking his time might never come. Instead, after taking his opportunity in 2014, 176 goals in just shy of six full seasons as first-team regular tells its own story.

Between 2014 and 2018, Kane became more lethal in front of goal for four consecutive season, netting 30 times in 2017/18 and joining an elusive club to reach that milestone.

At the age of 26 he is just over halfway to Alan Shearer’s all-time Premier League goal record.

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