Ferdinand, Terry, Van Dijk: Ranking the best centre backs in Premier League history

Rio Ferdinand and John Terry have got into a Twitter argument over the best centre backs in Premier League history.

Earlier this week, Ferdinand – appearing alongside Virgil van Dijk – picked the top five central defenders the Premier League has ever seen.

Rio placed Terry in fifth place (Virgil put Terry in 4th) and the Chelsea legend responded on Instagram with the comment ‘Opinions are great but stats don’t lie…’

Ferdinand has since engaged with Terry and told him “The moment one has to start pushing their own records and stats it’s really time to start addressing the fragile ego.”

But the exchange got us thinking: Who are the best central defenders in Premier League?

Well, we’ve turned to the trusty Tiermaker to rank the best centre backs the Premier League has ever seen in tiers.

We’ve selected 18 of the best centre backs and placed them into five tiers – Overrated, Very Good, Amazing, Incredible and GOAT.

Now, we’re fully aware that all 18 of these defenders were world class on their day. But for the sake of this Tiermaker, we have to be harsh when it comes to our ranking.

Be sure to let us know in the Facebook comments section if you don’t agree with our selections.

So, without further ado, here is our ranking of the best centre backs in Premier League history.

Look, hear us out.

Both Carragher and Cahill were brilliant and deserving of a place in the top 18 Premier League defenders in history.

Carragher was a one-club man, making 737 appearances for Liverpool. While you won’t find a more passionate and committed defender, we believe there were faster, stronger and technically better centre backs around.

It’s a similar case for Cahill who enjoyed eight brilliant seasons at Chelsea. However, he was helped by