11 Shortest Players In Premier League History

Who says you have to be the biggest or the strongest to rise to the very top of the football tree? Diego Maradona was never a goliath; Lionel Messi was almost on the scrap-heap for being too short and David Silva's size has never got in the way of his skill. It just so happens that in the English game, there's still a fondness for brutes - the muscle-bound "proper men" whose skills are kicking players into the stands and spitting venom rather than spraying passes. Short players do have fairly strong representation in the league: they tend to be used as more skilful, quicker outlets in freer roles who aren't required to put their foot through the ball (or the opposition), and while some of the league's little men have had to fend off the "he's too light-weight for the league" nonsense, their history has been a fairly illustrious one at times. So while the likes of Mark Hughes and Sam Allardyce continue to look for the biggest players (sometimes instead of the best ones), it's time to celebrate the smaller folk who've played a part in making the Premier League what it is today...

Rating: 5 ft 4

Probably the least well-known of all players on this list, Ducros was a youth team player with Coventry who didn't break into the first team.

But he makes it onto this list by virtue of tying with Alan Wright as the shortest officially registered player in the league's history.