Watford goalkeeper Ben Foster believes one Liverpool pair is ‘outrageously good’. He’d pick them over all but one Premier League duo.
The Premier League YouTube channel asked a tough question to Ben Foster this week: What would be your ideal centre-back pairing?
Foster, a seasoned Premier League goalkeeper, has seen some legendary centre-backs in his time. He believes you’ve got to go for a ready-made duo, however, and with that in mind, he thought of two.
“You could pick two unbelievable centre-backs, but they’re not necessarily going to work together in a partnership well,” said Foster. “I’m going to go for Rio Ferdinand and Nemanja Vidic.
“I could have chosen Virgil van Dijk and Joel Matip because those two together are outrageously good, but I’m going to go for Ferdinand and Vidic.”
Ben Foster has praise for Liverpool pair
It’s hard to argue against this, given the success of Ferdinand and Vidic. It’s nice to see the Van Dijk / Matip pairing get some love, though.
The Dutchman usually dominates discussion to an incredible degree, putting his partners in the shade. And we say the plural there with good reason – Joe Gomez deserves some recognition.
For one, Van Dijk and Gomez were the pairing that raced to the Premier League title. They were fantastic together and it’s a shame injury ruined further growth last season.
But Van Dijk and Matip are perhaps the standout still. They’ve started this season wonderfully, for one, and they did deliver the Champions League back in 2019.
Perhaps we’re showing off why these duos will struggle for that Ferdinand/Vidic-level recognition, though. There isn’t one set partnership at Liverpool and the Reds pair Van Dijk with two other options.
It’s hard for the partnership to win several trophies together, after all, if they don’t play more than one season together.