Photo by Crystal Pix/MB Media/Getty Images
Photo by Crystal Pix/MB Media/Getty Images
Arsenal’s recent success has been clearly born from one area of the pitch – the defence.
The old saying goes that goals win games but defences win championships, and that has proven to be true for Arsenal. The Gunners’ backline has been almost impenetrable in recent years, and that has largely been down to the partnership between William Saliba and Gabriel Magalhaes.
Saliba and Gabriel have been hailed as one of the great defensive partnerships, but, now, John Terry has made an interesting claim about the pair.
Indeed, speaking on his TikTok page, Terry has been ranking five of the greatest centre-back partnerships in Premier League history, and he’s picked another Arsenal partnership ahead of Saliba and Gabriel.
John Terry ranks Sol Campbell and Kolo Toure ahead of William Saliba and Gabriel
Terry ranked the five greatest centre-back partnerships in Premier League history.
Arsenal were represented twice in this list with both Saliba and Gabriel and Kolo Toure and Sol Campbell making the top five.
Intriguingly, Terry picked Toure and Campbell over their modern-day counterparts.
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Saliba and Gabriel are an amazing partnership, but it’s hard to argue against a centre-back pairing that went a full season unbeaten.
Arsenal 2003/04 compared to 2025/26
Looking at the defensive stats from Arsenal’s last two title winning seasons is interesting.
Last year, the Gunners had the best defence in the league, and the same could be said back in 2003/04.
It’s actually very hard to split the two seasons.
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Season Games Goals conceded Clean sheets Goals conceded per game
2003/04 38 26 15 0.68
2025/26 38 27 19 0.71
Last season Arsenal actually kept more clean sheets than the Invincibles, but they conceded fewer goals overall in 2003/04.
There’s arguments to make on both sides here, but the fact that Arsenal didn’t lose a single game in 2003/04 does lead us to think that Toure and Campbell may just about edge this particular argument.
Photo by Robbie Jay Barratt - AMA/Getty Images
Photo by Robbie Jay Barratt - AMA/Getty Images
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Photo by David Price/Arsenal FC via Getty Images
Photo by David Price/Arsenal FC via Getty Images