Stam and Vidic

If both were stood covering the two doorways of a room, who would you try to get past?

My opinion. Jump head first in to the wall. It would be softer.


Seriously though these two get compared a lot because of their monstrous physicality and the way they dominated entire teams offenses in their pomp. They have slight differences, Stam was quicker over the ground and slightly better with tricky players than Vidic, and Vidic is slightly better in the air and at organising his team mates than Stam was.

For me though they're in competition for our second best center back of the PL era award. Because Rio Ferdinand has been, for me, better than any other defender in Engliah football since the PL's inception.

And he's only really got 4, possibly 5 rivals for the crown. Vida and Jaap are two of them. The others are Tony Adams, Sol Campbell and (and this is where I'm undecided), a fully fit Leadley King.

Your Keown's, Terry's, Hyypia's and Carvalho's were all excellent players at the height of their powers, but for me the final cut would be the players in the first group only.

King is the only one on the boarder, and only because while it was obvious to all throughout his career that he was at the very least superior to John Terry, and Rio's obvious partner after Campbell's ability waned, chronic injuries and inability to train and maybe even fulfil even greater potential, and certainly ruined any chance of being an England regular.

So, who would you pick from the Dutchman and the Serb? Who would you say are the best defenders of the PL era? Please refrain from posting players who's prime was pre-premier league, Paul McGrath for example.

And...GO!