Ledley King, Desailly the list is endless for fucks sake.
let’s look at the stats
Aerial Battles Won -
Virgil is on 601 in 16th (remarkable) you’d give this to him
Rio is nowhere.
Blocks
Rio had 130 blocks
Virgil has 74
Errors leading to goals
JT 6, Rio 2, Virgil 1
Clearances
JT in 16th the other two not worth mentioning.
You get the gist…
it’s seems Gary Cahill was statistically the top defender in the premier league
Statistics can’t tell you everything. If a defender’s positioning is right they probably don’t need to make as many blocks or clearances as other defenders.
I think it’s very hard to tell who the best defenders are as so much comes down to whether your partner is any good or if you’re protected well by the midfield in front of you
Defenders in bad teams get more chance to defend and more chance to make mistakes. If you were to judge on total blocks and aerial duals then Duffy would probably be top last season, but it’s all about %’s and VVDs are first class.
Pallister was the greatest
VVD is the greatest, everybody knows it only a few lads have dug in so deep that there’s no way out and every world class performance cuts them more, great to see
Vidic is the only one I remember who I’d rate in the same bracket as VVD.
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VVD is one of those few players you see who makes the game look effortless. Like a 15 year old playing a game against some 10 year olds.
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A fantastic and accurate description.
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He’s the greatest i’ve ever seen on tv.
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So most of VVD’s numbers would have come from Southampton, where he actually had to do a bit of defending.
He’s a class defender. Not a doubt about it.
Let’s talk about an all time great after he’s won a few Premier Leagues.
So you have to win medals to be considered great? - that’s bizarre logic in fairness.
there’s hundreds of great defenders mate… what separates them is success. What else is there? They are all fucking brilliant. They can all tackle, run like fuck, pass etc.
Doing it consistently and being part of a team that are serial winners is what generally differentiates the really good players, from the greats.
Other than that, there’s marginal differences in quality
Benny Dunne > Ciaràn Carey
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He has a CL medal if that counts?
Troare > Cannavaro
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Ciaran Carey does?
Ollie Baker > Every Limerick player of the 90s
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Have you ever seen a defender transform a club like Van Djik has at Liverpool?
Kompany
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