Rio Ferdinand sent a scathing response to Jamie Carragher for claiming that Virgil van Dijk is a better defender than Nemanja Vidic.
In the history of the Premier League, no defender has won the Player of the Season accolade apart from Nemanja Vidic, although Virgil van Dijk came close. Let alone winning it; the Serb did it twice in the league, which is an achievement in itself and shows what kind of a player he was.
Before Vidic or after him, no other defensive player has managed to come close except Virgil van Dijk. The Dutchman has been the bedrock of this Liverpool defence under Jurgen Klopp for many years and is considered one of the Premier League greats.
In that period, Van Dijk won a single Premier League trophy while also triumphing in the Champions League on another occasion. Comparing the Dutchman to Vidic for trophies alone will be considered a crime, considering the Serbian has much more to show.
However, Jamie Carragher has now come out and said Van Dijk is a better defender than Vidic, which has not gone too well with many fans on social media. One of those is Vidic’s former defensive partner Rio Ferdinand, who gave a scathing response on his Vibe with FIVE podcast.
🚨 Rio Ferdinand: “I see Jamie Carragher tweeted something about Van Dijk being better than Vidic. I think Torres scored three goals in 15 games against Vidic. It's a myth.” #MUFC 🔴✅ pic.twitter.com/gLAWed8r0g
— UtdPlug (@UtdPlug) April 11, 2023
Ferdinand said, “I saw Jamie Carragher tweet something about Van Dijk being better than Vidic. I don’t know why or why that was said or whatever. He mentioned [Fernando] Torres – I think Torres scored three goals in 15 games against Vidic.”
“I think it’s a bit of a myth. I think he had a couple of dodgy moments in those games, and he got sent off a couple of times, but that’s kind of been amplified into saying he got tortured every time we played against Torres, which wasn’t the case.
“Three goals in 15 games. [Marcus] Rashford I think has got six in 13 games against Liverpool, does that mean he’s tortured Van Dijk and Van Dijk can’t handle him? Because that’s what you’re saying about [Vidic], if we’re using the same methodology that we’re using for Vidic with the way Rashford is scoring goals against Liverpool, just under one every two games he’s scoring against Liverpool. I don’t know.”
Van Dijk is currently struggling for relevance in this Liverpool side this season. Both player and club are terribly out of form as things stand and continue to fight for a slim hope of making it into the top four.
Before this season, the Dutchman held several defensive records, like no player dribbling past him. But, in this campaign, much of that has been broken to pieces, and the player remains a shadow of his old self, as Ferdinand claimed.
Compared to a Premier League great like Vidic may have been designed to rile up the Manchester United fan base. However, supporters of other clubs have also come out in support of Vidic rather than siding with Carragher on his claim on van Dijk.