Steven Gerrard once admitted Liverpool used to target Nemanja Vidic when playing against Manchester United, as pundits and supporters debate whether Virgil van Dijk is better.
Liverpool legend Jamie Carragher has sparked a debate on social media after he defended the Dutchman and said he is 'far better than Vidic' despite a poor campaign.
Carragher backed the Reds number four by claiming no centre-back in the Premier League has ever had an impact on a side like Van Dijk had on Liverpool.
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The Sky Sports pundit took to Twitter to say: “VVD is far better than Vidic, who was a top CB, but have you forgot his performances against Torres?
“Rio & JT had poor seasons in their career like all players, VVD is having one now. No CB in the PL era has ever had VVD’s impact on a team.”
When analysing past matches between Liverpool and United with Gary Neville, Gerrard revealed Rafa Benitez made a plan to target Vidic with Fernando Torres.
“A lot of our gameplan would be for Torres to start on Rio but make runs behind Vidic," ex-Reds skipper Gerrard said. "Or if we ever got Vidic in a one-vs-one we would always try to take the one-vs-one on because we knew he’d be rash.
“And Rio can obviously recover, he’s quick, he’s leggy, he’s strong. Vidic was a great defender in terms of defending his own box and at set-pieces he’d be a threat, but if you isolated him you could cause him problems.”
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