How many Manchester United players would get into Jose Mourinho’s best Chelsea side?

Some questions preoccupy the collective psyche to the point that they become part of the human condition. They are timeless, ageless, handed down from generation to generation, a source of eternal deliberation, investigation and mental struggle. Is there higher intelligence in the universe? What happens after we die? And how many footballers from one XI could theoretically get into a different XI, with the two teams arbitrarily selected and then mashed together just for the sake of it?

With Manchester United travelling to Stamford Bridge to face Chelsea in the Premier League this weekend, that last question seems especially pressing. Jose Mourinho, Chelsea manager from 2004 to 2007 and again from 2013 to 2015, is about to return to his old club with a side which went into the international break in disarray.

Read more: Chelsea vs Manchester United: Can Jose Mourinho deliver a tactical masterclass?

Despite salvaging a 3-2 victory against Newcastle at Old Trafford having gone 2-0 down last time out, United remain eighth in the table. They went out of the League Cup with defeat to Derby County – managed, funnily enough, by Mourinho’s former Chelsea protégé Frank Lampard – while they are currently second in their Champions League group and face a double header against frontrunners Juventus in the weeks to come.

With games against Everton, high-flying Bournemouth and Manchester City also on the horizon, some are predicting a fresh crisis for United over the next month. His players have certainly performed well below their capabilities this season, which combined with his gratuitously abrasive behaviour and the club’s hit-and-miss transfer strategy has left him with a misfiring and dysfunctional side.

Classic line-up

So how many of his current team would get into a classic Mourinho-era Chelsea XI? Take this line-up from when the man then heralded as the ‘Special One’ sealed his second Premier League title against none other than United in 2006.

In our view, maybe one or two of Mourinho’s current first XI would be in with a shout. David de Gea, on a good day, might get in ahead of Petr Cech, although we might be in danger of allowing Cech’s increasing fallibility over the last few years to cloud his towering noughties heyday.

One of Anthony Martial or Marcus Rashford could probably make it into the front three at the expense of Joe Cole, and that’s about it.

That might say something about the quality of player that Mourinho has to work with at United, or it might say something about how those players have performed under his direction and management, or perhaps the club’s record in the transfer market.

Or it might just be an unpopular opinion. With that in mind, let’s open the question up to a public vote.

Because nothing bad has ever come of the the chaotic whims of the democratic process! Feel free to tweet us with your shouts for a combined XI or leave a comment on our Facebook page.