Comparing players of present and past is always a fun, if a little flawed exercise but it guarantees to drive discussion and Phil Jones is the latest to have dipped his toes in it.
Phil Jones, who left Manchester United at the end of the 2022/23 season has since transitioned into coaching, even working with United youth sides.
He has also been making appearances as a pundit and Jones’ thoughts on Andre Onana after Nottingham Forest defeated United were particularly enlightening.
After that stint, he has likely given an unpopular opinion, choosing a Liverpool man over a Man Utd legend when asked to pick the better player of the two.
Cristiano Ronaldo of Real Madrid gets marked by Rio Ferdinand and Phil Jones of Manchester United
Photo by AMA/Corbis via Getty Images
Phil Jones’ choice between Liverpool and Man Utd personnel
Jones was at Old Trafford for more than a decade so it was perhaps reasonable to assume that if given the choice between a United man and a Liverpool man, it would be obvious what he would choose.
That’s even truer since he was given the choice between Virgil van Dijk and a player he played with, Rio Ferdinand.
When asked who the better of the two was, Jones gave Ferdinand his flowers but was clear in his choice that Van Dijk’s impact on Liverpool has been far bigger.
He said: “Rio [Ferdinand] has everything you want from a modern-day centre-half. He’s commanding, great on the ball, and he was a threat in both boxes.”
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Jamie Redknapp replied that Ferdinand had to deal with two strikers many times in that era while most teams today play with one, or not any at times.
However, Jones maintained that while Ferdinand was guaranteed to succeed in today’s game, it would be “harsh” to say that Van Dijk wouldn’t be successful in Ferdinand’s time.
Jones said: “I think he [Van Dijk] still would’ve been top. I gotta go with Van Dijk just because what he has given Liverpool for these five to six years has been incredible.
“He might have had a dip in form over the previous four to five months but he’s right up there again now. I think about the players we would come up against when we were fighting for titles so you watch Liverpool and think, ‘How are we gonna score if Van Dijk is on the pitch?’.
“He’s a top player. I can’t deny that so I’ll go with Van Dijk.”
Rio Ferdinand vs Virgil van Dijk is dominated by recency bias
In these debates, it is often impossible to come up with an absolutely correct answer because most of the time, there isn’t any.
The same is the case here because even though Van Dijk has been world-class for Liverpool, there’s an element of recency bias involved.
Rio Ferdinand is almost a victim of his own success because Sir Alex Ferguson made such a great team that was bigger than the sum of its parts, that the individual quality of those players flies under the radar.
On the other hand, Van Dijk was the marquee buy who arrived as Liverpool’s saviour and his form coincided with Jurgen Klopp overseeing their most successful spell of the 21st century.
Furthermore, because Van Dijk made the shortlists for prestigious awards like the Ballon d’Or, the recency bias became stronger since during Ferdinand’s time, the absence of detailed stats meant raw ones like goals and assists ruled the day.
That inevitably weakened the argument for judging a defender’s impact. Combine that with Ferdinand being a part of a great team while Van Dijk’s rise coincided with Liverpool becoming a great team, and it’s easy to see why he’d be preferred over the Englishman.
Man Utd fans just wouldn’t have expected a former player who has also played with Ferdinand to be the one who prefers that!
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