{"id":1106019,"date":"2019-09-11T18:59:32","date_gmt":"2019-09-11T17:59:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.squawka.com\/en\/?p=1106019"},"modified":"2019-09-11T19:02:25","modified_gmt":"2019-09-11T18:02:25","slug":"van-dijk-best-premier-league-history-kompany","status":"publish","type":"news","link":"https:\/\/www.squawka.com\/en\/news\/van-dijk-best-premier-league-history-kompany\/","title":{"rendered":"Van Dijk the best centre-back in Premier League history, says Kompany"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>Vincent Kompany has named Liverpool&#8217;s Virgil van Dijk as the best centre-back in the history of the Premier League.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>The Manchester City legend was back at the Etihad on Wednesday night for his testimonial, although a thigh injury ruled him out of the contest.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" style=\"background-color: transparent; display: block; padding: 0; max-width: 700px;\" title=\"Audioboom player\" src=\"https:\/\/embeds.audioboom.com\/posts\/7360490-squawka-talker-special-champions-league-2019-20-preview\/embed\/v4\" width=\"300\" height=\"300\" frameborder=\"0\" scrolling=\"no\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>In the build-up to the game, Kompany was asked where he ranks himself among the Premier League&#8217;s best ever centre-backs.<\/p>\n<p>And while he acknowledged comparisons can be problematic, the Belgian was keen to highlight Van Dijk ahead of some other big hitters.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I never try to compare,&#8221; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.liverpoolecho.co.uk\/sport\/football\/football-news\/man-city-fans-fuming-vincent-16902007\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Kompany said<\/a>. &#8220;My journey is different, I&#8217;ve had to deal with different tools and for me to not play this game, let&#8217;s not escape the irony.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Would You Rather Michael Owen or Alan Shearer? England Fans Quizzed\" width=\"500\" height=\"281\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/6avKi3w7sXE?start=133&#038;feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p><strong>Subscribe to <a href=\"http:\/\/sqwk.at\/Squawka-Sub\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Squawka\u2019s Youtube channel here<\/a>.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>&#8220;So I&#8217;ve had to deal with that and I&#8217;ve tried to be substantial for my team.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I would bring it back to Virgil van Dijk, he\u2019s not been on the scene as long as [John] Terry and [Rio] Ferdinand who have been around for a long time but the signs he\u2019s shown in the last few years show if he had been around longer he\u2019d have been at the top for a long time.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;The Liverpool before Van Dijk and after are a completely different set up so, I\u2019ll give him that one.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Kompany, Terry and Ferdinand won multiple titles during their Premier League careers, while Nemanja Vidic is also often named among English football&#8217;s leading centre-backs.<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_1104405\" style=\"width: 1034px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.squawka.com\/en\/features\/european-deadline-day-done-deals-missed\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-1104405\" class=\"wp-image-1104405 size-large\" src=\"https:\/\/media.squawka.com\/images\/en\/2019\/09\/02153144\/DoneDeals-1-1024x576.jpg\" alt=\"European deadline day done deals\" width=\"1024\" height=\"576\" srcset=\"https:\/\/media.squawka.com\/images\/en\/2019\/09\/02153144\/DoneDeals-1-1024x576.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/media.squawka.com\/images\/en\/2019\/09\/02153144\/DoneDeals-1-300x170.jpg 300w, https:\/\/media.squawka.com\/images\/en\/2019\/09\/02153144\/DoneDeals-1-768x432.jpg 768w, https:\/\/media.squawka.com\/images\/en\/2019\/09\/02153144\/DoneDeals-1-66x37.jpg 66w, https:\/\/media.squawka.com\/images\/en\/2019\/09\/02153144\/DoneDeals-1-620x350.jpg 620w, https:\/\/media.squawka.com\/images\/en\/2019\/09\/02153144\/DoneDeals-1-940x530.jpg 940w, https:\/\/media.squawka.com\/images\/en\/2019\/09\/02153144\/DoneDeals-1.jpg 1200w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-1104405\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">READ MORE: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.squawka.com\/en\/features\/european-deadline-day-done-deals-missed\">Done deals you may have missed on European deadline day<\/a><\/p><\/div>\n<p>Van Dijk is yet to win the Premier League with Liverpool but did help the Reds lift the Champions League trophy last season.<\/p>\n<p>The Dutchman was part of a defence that conceded just 22 goals in 38 league outings last season, the fewest in the division.<\/p>\n<p>Liverpool missed out on the title to Kompany&#8217;s City by just one point.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Vincent Kompany has named Liverpool&#8217;s Virgil van Dijk as the best centre-back in the history of the Premier League. The Manchester City legend was back at the Etihad on Wednesday night for his testimonial, although a thigh injury ruled him out of the contest. In the build-up to the game, Kompany was asked where he&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":278,"featured_media":1098850,"parent":0,"menu_order":5211,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_yoast_wpseo_focuskw":"","_yoast_wpseo_title":"","_yoast_wpseo_metadesc":"Vincent Kompany has revealed he thinks Liverpool's Virgil van Dijk is the best centre-back in Premier League history.","footnotes":""},"tags":[],"news-category":[],"class_list":["post-1106019","news","type-news","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"acf":{"external_featured_image_url":"","hide_featured_image_pattern":false},"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v28.0 (Yoast SEO v28.0) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-premium-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Van Dijk the best centre-back in Premier League history, says Kompany | Squawka | EN<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Vincent Kompany has revealed he thinks Liverpool&#039;s Virgil van Dijk is the 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