The best Premier League defenders ever is an ever-changing debate.
The Premier League has been graced by plenty of global megastars over the past 32 years, but underpinning every great team have been those often-unsung heroes: the defenders.
The way centre-backs and full-backs play has changed since the Premier League kicked off in 1992, but there are some names that stand the test of time.
Our trusty team at FourFourTwo have analysed the best goalkeepers in the history of the Premier League, along with the best defenders, the best midfielders, the best wingers and the best strikers. We looked not just at their legendary status but how good they were technically, how much of an influence and an impact they had, and whether they'll stand another three decades as icons.
Whether they've providing leadership from the back, helping a team to league titles, enjoying remarkable longevity, or just being a brilliant defender, here's our list of the Premier League's 20 greatest-ever defenders.
Who would you have on your list?
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The 20 best Premier League defenders ever: 20. Lucas Radebe (Leeds United)
A goalkeeper until he was 20, Radebe made the switch to Leeds United from South African Kaizer Chiefs in 1994 and initially struggled to nail down a regular place at Elland Road due to injuries and clashes with then-manager Howard Wilkinson.
The gaffer's departure in 1996 and a better spell of fitness allowed Radebe to establish himself in the Leeds side, however. After being appointed captain he led Leeds to four straight top four finishes and a Champions League semi-final, with Radebe's performance attracting interest from across Europe - including arch-rivals Manchester United.
Leeds' decline thereafter was down to much more than just Radebe missing two years with a serious injury, but it certainly didn't help, and he was never quite the same after. There's now a suite named after him at Elland Road.
19. Ricardo Carvalho (Chelsea)
One of Chelsea's most important signings of the early Roman Abramovich era, Carvalho followed Jose Mourinho from Porto to Stamford Bridge in 2004 and immediately formed an outstanding partnership with John Terry.
Chelsea's record of 24 clean sheets and just 15 goals conceded in Carvalho's first season at the club still stands 20 years later. In the Portuguese's six seasons at the club, they conceded just 143 goals in 228 games.
Despite not being the most physical defender in the league - by his own admission - Carvalho's reading of the game was outstanding, and he had no shortage of ability on the ball either. The only thing keeping him from a higher ranking is his injury record, which meant we only saw him for 135 Premier League games.
18. John Stones (Everton, Manchester City)
The archetype of what clubs want from a modern centre-back, Stones offers everything: solid off the ball and classy on it, to the point that Pep Guardiola has moved him into midfield plenty of times in recent years.
Stones helped Everton to enjoy their best-ever Premier League season as they finished fifth with 72 points in his first full season at the club (2013/14) after joining from Barnsley, and it was immediately apparently he was destined for a career at the very top.
That's what he's had at Manchester City over the past eight years, becoming one of Guardiola's most trusted players in spite of constant injury niggles that have caused him to miss roughly half of City's games over that time.
17. Jaap Stam (Manchester United)
Is he better than some of the players ranking higher on this list? Yes, undoubtedly. Unfortunately, we only got two and a half seasons of the giant Dutchman in English football - but what a two and a half years.
Signed from PSV in 1998, Stam was the final piece in the puzzle that took United from being an excellent side to being an all-conquering treble-winning outfit, earning multiple individual awards to put alongside his winners' medals.
United surprisingly sold Stam in 2001, with Ferguson feeling the centre-back had lost some of his indomitable quality after recovering from an ACL injury and bizarrely telling him of the decision to sell him to Lazio in a petrol station forecourt. The Scot later admitted he got it badly wrong: Stam remained a top defender abroad for another six years, while his replacement Laurent Blanc turned out to be a bit cack.
16. Paul McGrath (Aston Villa, Derby County)
There are those who will tell you Paul McGrath was past his best by the time the Premier League began: he was turned 33 in the first season of the new league, and his well-documented personal problems were increasingly affecting him off the pitch.
Aston Villa and Ireland fans will tell you those people are dead wrong - as does McGrath being named the PFA Players' Player of the Year in the division's inaugural campaign.
A colossus of a defender and a leader on the pitch, McGrath helped Villa to finish second in that campaign as well as helping them to two League Cup victories in 1994 and 1996. If more of his career had fallen in the Premier League era, he'd probably be much much higher on this list.
15. Patrice Evra (Manchester United, West Ham United)
A strange man, but an excellent left-back. Signed from Monaco in 2006, Evra initially struggled to get into the first team regularly - but after making the breakthrough, he proved to be excellent, and rarely dislodged from the last of Sir Alex Ferguson's last great Manchester United sides.
Evra claimed surprisingly few assists for an attack-minded full-back, but then, that wasn't really his job; not when United at one point had an array of forward talents that included Cristiano Ronaldo, Wayne Rooney, Carlos Tevez and Dimitar Berbatov.
The Frenchman's performances struck a great balance between endeavour and responsibility, and he was named in the PFA Premier League Team of the Year on three occasions.
14. Jamie Carragher (Liverpool)
One of Chelsea's most important signings of the early Roman Abramovich era, Carvalho followed Jose Mourinho from Porto to Stamford Bridge in 2004 and immediately formed an outstanding partnership with John Terry.
Chelsea's record of 24 clean sheets and just 15 goals conceded in Carvalho's first season at the club still stands 20 years later. In the Portuguese's six seasons at the club, they conceded just 143 goals in 228 games.
The only thing
13. Ledley King (Tottenham Hotspur)
A Tottenham player throughout his career, King suffered knee from a complete absence of knee cartilage that infamously meant he was rarely able to train with the rest of the squad.
There's a touch of hypocrisy here, perhaps, to hold Stones' and Carvalho's injury records against them but then place King above them - but when he was fit (and he played more games than you might think), King could be peerless.
It's no coincidence that King's pomp coincided with Spurs rising from constant mid-tablers to establishing themselves as near-constant top four challengers. The centre-back captained Spurs to win two League Cups and qualify for the Champions League for the first time.
12. Sami Hyypia (Liverpool)
Liverpool had a horrendous track record for signing centre-backs when Hyypia arrived in 1999 from Dutch side Willem II for just £2.6m, which was not a huge amount of money even back then.
That may well have set expectations low, but Hyypia immediately proved to be the real deal. The 6'4" Finn was an absolute rock for ten years at Anfield, first alongside Stephane Henchoz and then in that famous partnership with Carragher, and wore the captain's armband until gladly surrendering it to Steven Gerrard in 2003.
Hyypia played a key role in their treble triumph of 2001 and their Champions League win of 2005, and a slightly lesser role in their first genuinely sustained title challenge in a generation in 2008/09...and his knack for scoring important goals from set pieces didn't hurt his standing at all, either.
11. Gary Pallister (Manchester United, Middlesbrough)
The man Stam was expensively signed to replace, Pallister was a hugely important part of the phenomenally successful Manchester United side of the early-to-mid 1990s: when he left in 1998, he was the only player to have played a part in every trophy the manager had lifted with the club to that point.
Pallister was named in the PFA team of the year in four of the Premier League's first six years of existence, and formed a brilliant partnership with Steve Bruce, who can consider himself extremely unlucky not to make this list (we had him 21st).
Bruce was far more prolific in front of goal, but Pallister had an uncanny ability for scoring goals of his own when they most counted, including bagging braces at Anfield on two separate occasions.
10. Gary Neville (Manchester United)
Even in a Manchester United side that was not well-liked by neutrals, Gary Neville was a particular source of ire...which often tells you that a player is doing their job well.
The right-back was far more than just a prickly wind-up merchant, however, as 602 Manchester United appearances and 85 England caps in a 20-year career can attest. Neville was the best right-back in the Premier League for much of that time.
'Balance' is the word that comes to mind for Neville: always defensively responsible, but also capable of getting forward at the right times and capable of delivering lethal early crosses.
9. Sol Campbell (Tottenham Hotspur, Arsenal, Portsmouth, Newcastle United)
There was little flash about Campbell; he was just constantly reliable. Unless you're a Tottenham fan, anyway.
Controversial both for daring to cross the north London divide and for some of his post-career political activities, but you won't find many people who will deny Campbell was an excellent centre-back for a very, very long time.
Campbell became in immovable fixture in the Tottenham back line as a teenager in 1993 and was still getting Premier League moves into the 2010s, helping Arsenal to go Invincible in 2003/04 and reach the Champions League final in 2006, skippering Portsmouth to the FA Cup in 2008, and holding off heavy competition to earn 73 caps for England.
8. Tony Adams (Arsenal)
A big of a clumsy joke figure in his early days, Adams' career at his only club, Arsenal, began nine year before the Premier League was founded and ended ten years after.
Adams was the most prominent and long-serving of several Gunners defenders to bridge that gap between the George Graham era and the Arsene Wenger era, winning trophy after trophy despite his off-pitch battles with alcoholism.
To a whole generation of fans, Tony Adams was Arsenal: his statue outside the Emirates Stadium, alongside effigies of Thierry Henry and Dennis Bergkamp, is there for a reason.
7. Nemanja Vidic (Manchester United)
No-nonsense defenders appeared to e going out of style when Vidic arrived at Manchester United in 2006, but Vidic proved they still held value.
Exactly as mean and intimidating as he looked, Vidic was a more than worthy foe to every striker in the division (except Fernando Torres, for whom he had something of a blind spot).
As Ferguson put it: "How many centre-halves can you name who actually like defending? Vidic liked it. He loved the challenge of sticking his head in there. You could tell that the thrill of contesting those 50-50 balls animated him."
6. Vincent Kompany (Manchester City)
It's strange to think that Kompany's arrival at Manchester City pre-dated Sheikh Mansour's, but it's true, even if only by a matter of days - and the centre-back proved to be one of the best purchases the club have ever made.
Even in his injury-hit last few seasons at the club, Kompany was a vital presence in the City defence, both with his own individual performances and his ability to inspire others to reach their best.
Kompany's effectively title-winning goal against Leicester City in 2019 just the final big flourish on a spectacular transformation the club enjoyed during his time at the Etihad, most of which was spent as captain.
5. Kyle Walker (Tottenham Hotspur, Aston Villa, Manchester City)
A full-back who ticks all the boxes we're looking at: longevity, ability, consistency, trophies, and improving every team he has been a part of.
Walker was there through Tottenham's continued ascent to turn the big four into a big six, then made the move to Manchester City to become - and remain - a crucial player in a hugely impressive side.
The right-back effectively defines all the qualities you want from a modern-day full-back, regularly getting among the assists without shirking his defensive duties.
4. John Terry (Chelsea)
A player whose presence often transcended his ability, mostly for the better for Chelsea and sometimes for the worse.
Not quite a one-club man, Terry nonetheless racked up nearly 500 Premier League appearances for Chelsea over 20 Premier League campaigns.
A reliable defender who also scored more than his fair share of goals, Terry won it all with Chelsea, going down as the club's greatest-ever captain after taking the armband aged just 23.
3. Virgil van Dijk (Southampton, Liverpool)
Few players have had the aura of invincibility that van Dijk had for years after his move from Southampton to Liverpool.
Eyebrows were raised at the monstrous £75m transfer fee the Reds paid for his services in 2018, but he has proved to be worth every penny. The Dutchman was ever-present for the club as he won the Premier League player of the season in 2018/19, when Liverpool won the Champions League, and again as Liverpool ended their 30-year wait for a top-flight title the following season.
Van Dijk went over two years without being dribbled past once in the Premier League from 2018-2020 - and on the ball he has been the perfect fit for the unique Jurgen Klopp style that brought success back to Anfield.
2. Ashley Cole (Chelsea, Arsenal)
Quite possibly the best English full-back of all time, and for our money the Premier League's finest too.
A talent from an early age, Cole was part of a brilliant Arsenal side, including the 2004 Invincibles team, before going on to be part of an even more successful Chelsea side... much as that move proved just as unpopular with Gunners fans as Campbell's move to join them from Tottenham had been a few years earlier.
More than that, Cole helped set the blueprint for what full-backs need to be in the 21st century. Almost unerringly consistent at both ends of the pitch and one of the best left-backs in the world throughout his career, Cole was quite simply an excellent footballer.
1. Rio Ferdinand (West Ham United, Leeds United, Manchester United, Queens Park Rangers)
We don't mind admitting it was a tough call for who should take the number one spot, but Ferdinand takes it for good reason.
When Ferdinand first emerged as a 17 year old at West Ham in 1995, centre-backs in English football were defenders and that, more or less, was that. By the time he retired 20 years later, far more was expected of them on the ball - and Ferdinand was the primary factor in that shift.
A classy technical player who also defended as well as anyone else you could name, Ferdinand was equally at home in a three, a four, as a sweeper... you name it. Ferdinand was quick, he was tall, he was good on the ball and off it. All but ten of his league games played at the highest level. Ferdinand wore the captain's armband for club and country, and was named in the PFA Premier League team of the year six times spanning 12 seasons, winning every trophy along the way, and was one of the finest defenders in the world. A worthy number one.
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