Former Manchester United defender Nemanja Vidic has said that he would take any of United’s current centre-backs over Liverpool defender Virgil van Dijk.
The Dutch international has been superb for the Reds since signing for Liverpool last season but Vidic has said that he wouldn’t take any of Chelsea or Liverpool’s defenders, which include van Dijk, Trent Alexander-Arnold and Andy Robertson.
“I think [Lindelof] had a difficult time in the beginning,” Vidic told Omnisport.
“Well done to him to come back. It’s not easy, especially playing for Man United, big club, to not start that well and have criticism from the media.
“To come back from that and now perform well, it shows some character as well, which is important if you want to play for Man United.
“He has some quality definitely. He has done really well. I think Phil Jones did well in the recent games he played, Chris Smalling is a good defender, [Eric] Bailly as well. I think we have four solid defenders and with the right match I think they can perform to the best of their capabilities.
“Overall, I said even before when they didn’t have great games, if you look at the other teams, I would not have any defenders of Liverpool or Chelsea, I don’t think they have better defenders than we have.
“I think now the team is playing better, they have more confidence and there will come even better matches from them.”
Van Dijk missed Liverpool’s second round Champions League tie against Bayern Munich on Tuesday but manager Jurgen Klopp has said that he’s been impressed by his side’s defence in the absence of the former Southampton defender.
“[It’s] very [important], like he always is. But the most important thing is that we didn’t miss him as much as, again, a lot of people expected us to miss him – because we defend as a unit.
“It makes life a bit easier for Virg and for Fabinho as well. In front of him Hendo played an outstanding game; if he would not have been as spot-on as he was then Fabinho would have struggled, and Virg would have struggled in the last couple of games. It’s really good to have him back, of course.
“It’s the first time for I don’t know how many weeks that we have to make a choice between midfielders, full-backs, even centre-half if I think about Fabinho again in that position.
“I could make a decision about it. That’s good. For us, it’s a good moment. So far this week because of the Bayern game, it was only more or less recovery but now we have two sessions to prepare the game. That’s good and it’s different for us. I’m really looking forward to it.”
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