On this week’s edition of 888sports’ The Playlist, a panel of four are set with the challenge of ranking the five best current Premier League centre backs from an array of different teams.
Rory Jennings, Robbie Lyle, Ade Oladipo, and Abbi Summers were tasked with the difficult ranking, and the debate got heated between two particular centre halves.
To add even more fire to the debate, each panellist had to leave out a player from their top five ranking and whilst Lyle chose Manchester United’s Raphael Varane, the other three did not, so he quickly changed his decision to Cristian Romero after being handed an ultimatum.
All four were in agreement however when it came to anointing Virgil Van Dijk as their best Premier League centre half, but they did acknowledge the slight downturn in form of the Dutchman this season.
There was plenty of praise showered upon Chelsea’s Thiago Silva who, at the age of 38, is still producing world class performances as well as Ruben Dias who made a majority of the panellists’ third place, as both were labelled “genuinely elite” by Jennings, along with Van Dijk.
The real question boiled down to who was better between Romero and Arsenal’s William Saliba for fourth. The 21-year-old Saliba has grabbed everyone’s attention this season after a two-year loan spell in France where he won Ligue 1 young player of the season, but Romero has equally impressed for Spurs during this season and last.
