Jamie Carragher has revealed the team that made him feel uncomfortable during his time playing for Liverpool.
Carragher spent his entire professional career playing for boyhood club Liverpool having worked his way up the Reds’ academy.
In a career that spanned more than 15 years, Carragher played a total of 737 times for the Anfield club across all competitions, making him the man with the second most appearances for Liverpool.
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Since retiring in 2013, the former England international has moved into the world of punditry.
Speaking on Sky Sports’ Monday Night Football alongside former Arsenal man Freddie Ljungberg, Carragher revealed the team that he feared the most was the Gunners’ Invincibles side under Arsene Wenger.
He said: “This team is the best team I ever played against, and the one team where I would say going into games affected me psychologically.
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“I felt uncomfortable, I didn’t feel good enough, I didn’t feel physically strong, it made me feel smaller and weaker. Against United, you knew they were better than us or Chelsea had the edge on us but you still felt we’d give them a good game. We’ll take them as far as they can.”
Carragher continued: “This, Freddie, and your team is what it did to me psychologically.”
Playing as a right-back at the time, Carragher explained the challenges of playing against Arsenal in that position.
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The 45-year-old said: “I actually think playing this Arsenal team as a right back, I’m not sure there was any more difficult positions to play in the world, certainly at that time.
“I played right back in that Liverpool team in the early 2000s and you’d get Pires coming inside, you’d get Thierry Henry spinning out to this side and you’d get Ashley Cole on the overlap. And the reason I’d say this team was the toughest to play against was because things happened so quickly.”
Carragher added: “That’s the most difficult thing as a defender, you’ve got no time to react. I was an organiser, telling people where to go and organising the team. When you’re playing against a team who play at this pace there’s no time to speak. You can’t pass on information, things are happening so quickly.
“And I think this area of Pires, Cole, Thierry Henry was devastating. I have nightmares thinking about it.”
Topics: Liverpool, Arsenal, Jamie Carragher, Football