Rio Ferdinand believes that Fernando Torres deployed a style of play that was built to âhurtâ former Manchester United teammate Nemanja Vidic.
Vidic and Ferdinand forged a monster partnership at United and both former defenders enjoyed incredible success under the legendary Sir Alex Ferguson.
However, Vidic was repeatedly on the receiving end of a hard time from Liverpool hero Torres, who was in lethal goalscoring form during his Anfield days.
The 40-year-old Serbian was sent off three times when he came up against Torres and Liverpool, with the former Reds striker tormenting him on the pitch.
Ferdinand revealed that he and Vidic never discussed the idea of swapping who marked Torres, despite claiming that he âdidnât cause me any problems.â
However, the United legend claimed that a âdevastating strikerâ like El Nino was that one player who might have proved too much for Vidicâs style of play.
When asked about Vidicâs battles with Torres, Ferdinand told The Beautiful Game Podcast: âFirst of all, itâs the best partnership ever in Premier League history.
âTrust me. Listen, strikers were playing out on the wings sometimes because they didnât want to come up against us, it was mad!
âThereâs always going to be that one player in your career whoâs difficult. He might not be the best player on the planet, but his style is made to hurt your style. And Torres might have just been that for Nemanja.
âHeâs someone he found difficult to play against. And heâs probably the only player Iâve seen consistently give Vida a hard time, and he got sent off in a couple of the games didnât he, early on in the games.
âBut listen, Torres was a great player and when he was in his pomp when he was at Liverpool, he was one of the best strikers about. He was a devastating striker. But with me one-v-one, he didnât cause me any problems if Iâm honest.
âThatâs just the way it is. One of my hardest strikers to play against when people ask me -- other than the ones that are obvious, like [Cristiano] Ronaldo and [Lionel] Messi -- was Kevin Davies. You would never expect that.
âBut he was always tough to play against for me, always caused me the most problems. He always was physical, just obstructing you all the time. The ball might be over there [away from you] but heâs grabbing you and all this stuff.
âSo you would never expect that, but Torres would have been that for Nemanja probably. But we never really spoke about it.
âItâs mad, our relationship, we spent a lot of time with each other after training, in and around the training ground just chatting about loads of stuff, but it wasnât about our relationship on the pitch.
âIt wasnât like, âVida you know when you go tight with [Luis] Suarez, Iâm going to be behind covering.â It was nothing like that. We never spoke like that at all.
âBut our relationship was like there was something in the air that I knew he was going to go there, and if he went there, I would go here. If I went here, he was there.
âPartnerships in the game are not necessarily built just on the training pitch, sometimes youâre just blessed that someone comes into your life at that time and itâs come together just like that. And thatâs what we had.â
Vidic, who ended his remarkable playing career in 2016, called former rival Torres a âtop playerâ and explained why he believes El Nino had his number on the pitch.
Featured Image Credit: PA/Rio Ferdinand Presents FIVETopics:Â Nemanja Vidic, Fernando Torres, Rio Ferdinand, Manchester United, Liverpool, Premier League, England, Football
Adnan Riaz