TIM SHERWOOD has recalled the time Patrick Vieira called him an IDIOT – however he was having a word in his Arsenal team-mate Emmanuel Petit’s ear at the time.
Former England international Sherwood is co-hosting The Sun’s brilliant new show Greatest Of All Teams, brought to you by Sun Vegas.
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And in the latest episode he recalls a moment in the tunnel before a North London derby between Tottenham and Arsenal.
Sherwood tells of Vieira: “One of the best. He could do everything.
“When I was at Tottenham, I used to try and gain an edge in the tunnel, even before the game started.
“Just verbals, really. ‘Here they come, look at them coming out.’
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“I used to go in Emmanuel Petit’s ear and he used to bite back, used to give me some back.
“And I remember Patrick just staring forward and saying to Manu, ‘Just ignore that idiot.’”
Also in the latest episode, Sherwood told the brilliant tale of how Zinedine Zidane and Christophe Dugarry almost ended up in Lancashire – three years before they won the World Cup for France.
Sherwood captained Rovers to their 1994-95 Premier League triumph.
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New manager Ray Harford tried to build on the success by strengthening the squad.
But owner Jack Walker was not convinced they needed Zidane – because they already had Sherwood in midfield.
Sherwood said: “It was a huge change after we won the league. It was almost like a relief that we’d got over the line.
“Arsenal got over the line after finishing twice on a couple of occasions.
“You see what they’ve done, they’ve bought players. We didn’t do that.
“There was an opportunity to sign Dugarry and Zidane. I remember them coming to the Blackburn training ground.
“Jack Walker said, ‘Why do we need Zidane? We’ve got Tim Sherwood.’
“Zidane… I’m a little bit embarrassed even now thinking about that.
“Jack used to like a drink, to be fair. And that day, he might have liked it a little bit more than usual.
“Zidane could have sat on a bench a few times, watched me perform, learned the Premier League. I could have told him the best boozers to go to in Blackburn.
“But I have to put a caveat on it. That’s not the Zidane he grew to be. He was a young Zidane.
“But you’re the champions of the Premier League, a huge league. Everyone started wanting to come there. They still do want to come.
“You’ve got to put the foundations in. If you’ve got an opportunity to sign superstars like that at a time from France, they should have turned it around.”
Manchester United fan and content creator Flex joined co-hosts StevoTheMadman and Sherwood in The Sun’s G.O.A.T studio.
He was tasked with picking his best XI, choosing one player from each computerised random selection of 11 teams from throughout the Premier League era.
But after banking Declan Rice early on, things went from bad to worse before he relied on a late Mo Salah signing to try and salvage his squad – but was it enough to compete for the Champions League or was he in a fight against dropping into the Championship?
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Head over to YouTube now for all the picks, anecdotes and Premier League nostalgia in the full episode of Greatest of All Teams.
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‘Greatest of All Teams’, sponsored by Sun Vegas, where creators and ex-footballers are asked to create their ideal side from the Premier League era and find out where they’d finish.
Each week, Tim Sherwood and Stevo The Madman ask their guest to pick an all time Premier League 11 from 1992 onwards based on a lucky dip of players and clubs from our supercomputer. The guest’s team then has a season simulated to see how many points it would accrue. Each guest’s points total then goes on a series leaderboard to see who wins overall.
Packed with “Barclaysmen” era nostalgia and lots of laughs, the show combines deep football knowledge with hypothetical scenarios for fans across generations.
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