Chelsea icon John Terry and Manchester United idol Rio Ferdinand have rekindled their feud on Twitter by taking a swipe at each other’s ‘fragile egos’. This spat was reignited after former Red Devils defender labelled Terry as only the fifth-best centre-back in Premier League history.
The row started when Ferdinand put three Manchester United defenders including himself ahead of his England teammate Terry. The former Red centre-back was debating about the best centre-back of the Premier League era with Liverpool’s Virgil van Dijk for BT Sport.
And this when he put himself in top spot, followed by Old Trafford colleague Nemanja Vidic, Van Dijk at third, Jaap Stam fourth and Terry at fifth. This seemed to have offended the Blues legend who took to Instagram where he posted a picture that contained a variety of stats wherein Terry was a topper and captioned the post “opinions are great but the stats don’t lie”.
In response to Terry’s Instagram post, Ferdinand himself turned to Twitter, asking his Ex-England teammate to address his “fragile ego” before stating he was lucky to even be included at that list.
“The moment one has to start pushing their own records and stats it’s really time to start addressing the fragile ego. Your lucky I even put you in the top 5 after the racism case with my brother so be thankful you made it,”
he wrote.
Terry wasted little time and fired back:
There is no love lost between both Terry and Ferdinand after the former was accused of racially abusing the latter’s brother Anton in 2011.
Despite the sparked exchange, Ferdinand actually heaped praise on Terry in the original interview. The Red Devils icon said of the Chelsea legend:
“In terms of his longevity at that club, what they won, body on the line, a much better footballer than people give him credit for, could play off his left and right foot.”
Both the players are widely considered to be two of the greatest Premier League central defenders in history, with 11 titles between them.
