Highlights

• William Saliba and Gabriel are establishing themselves as one of the best centre-back partnerships the Premier League has ever seen.
• Ruben Dias and John Stones have guided Man City to great success since teaming up in 2020.
• Rio Ferdinand and Nemanja Vidic, as well as Ricardo Carvalho and John Terry, are the two greatest centre-back partnerships in Premier League history.

Sir Alex Ferguson's old adage that "attack wins you games, defence wins you titles" has regularly come to fruition throughout Premier League history. When the goals are flowing in at one end, it's quite easy to forget about the importance of those shoring up the ship at the back. But when the tough gets going, it's only then that a team's true spirit and mettle are tested to the limits.

In times of struggle, it is the defence that will help great sides grind their way to victory. With this in mind, the best Premier League centre-back duos have been ranked in the article below, using several ranking factors to decipher the rocks to the impenetrable.

Ranking factors

• Teamwork
• Goals conceded
• Success
• Importance to the team
• How well the pair complement each other

10 Wes Morgan & Roberth Huth

Leicester City

During Leicester City's fairytale 5000–1 odds 2017/18 Premier League winning campaign under Claudio Ranieri, it was Riyad Mahrez, Jamie Vardy, and N'Golo Kante that stole the front page headlines. However, if it hadn't been for the no-nonsense, human battering rams of Wes Morgan and Robert Huth at the back, there might never have been such glory that term.

Treating the penalty box as if it was their house - while any opposition player was seen as an intruder - the pair constructed an unbreakable bond - in turn, allowing for an adamantine defence. Often, rival fans would criticise the duo for their nastiness. But when it came to winning that coveted league title, it was their traditional style that helped the course of history dramatically. While other teams had a technical nonchalence to their defence, Huth and Morgan were put under the umbrella term "brexit football", and they won against all odds.

9 Daniel Agger & Jamie Carragher

Liverpool

Certainly, this entry might come as a surprise to many. Part of the reason why is because it was usually Sami Hyppia and Jamie Carragher who kept Liverpool's defence locked up under Rafael Benitez. However, retrospect is a wonderful thing, and statistics suggest Daniel Agger was a better defensive partner for the Anfield icon.

When these two joined forces, strikers found goals extremely hard to come by. Across 8171 minutes playing together, the pair were breached a mere 58 times. The statistic equates to just 24.3 projected goals per season, seeing them comfortably sit among the Premier League's best duos. Ifs, buts, and maybes, however, leave Liverpool's Dane and Scouse duo further down the pecking order given Agger's discouraging injury record.

8 Gabriel & William Saliba

Arsenal

They have got everything from pace, power, height, technical ability, on the ball skills, composure, to the means of success in the face of constant pressure. This has all been abundantly clear across the last two seasons, as Gabriel and William Saliba have been an almighty presence for Arsenal in their unending strive for silverware.

While Manchester City continue to prove that they are an incomparable monster, the Gunners' centre-back partnership has ensured Pep Guardiola's side hasn't got too much sleep over the last few seasons. Saliba and Gabriel's strong point is also their consistency. Mikel Arteta can rely on them to be fit throughout the entire campaign and not show signs of fatigue, while their clean tackling abilites are matched by their ball-playing traits suited to modern football. It only feels like a matter of time before they reap the rewards of helping their club reach low-hanging fruit.

GIVEMSPORT Key Statistic: William Saliba has kept more clean sheets than any other player in the 2023/24 Premier League season (18), followed by David Raya (16), and Gabriel (15).

7 Vincent Kompany & Joleon Lescott

Manchester City

Vincent Kompany and Joleon Lescott formed a rock-solid partnership at Manchester City. Kompany's leadership and dominance in the air combined with Lescott's positional awareness to create a defence that was pivotal in City's 2011 FA Cup triumph, which was followed by Premier League success during the 2011-12 season.

In his 11 years at the Etihad Stadium, Kompany became one of the best centre-backs in world football. If it wasn't for his departure early into Guardiola's shimmering tenure, the Belgian could have found himself further up this list alongside the Citizen's modern centre-backs. However, Lescott deserves his flowers. He was voted the Players' Player of the Season by his teammates in the 2007/08 campaign - and, after all, teamwork is a key ingredient to the ultaimte partnerships, and the synergy between Kompany and Lescott brought out the best in him.

6 Ruben Dias & John Stones

Manchester City

Guardiola may have needed to spend in excess of £500m on defensive reinforcements to get to this point. But like splashing out on a good coat for the English winters, the investment was worth it. John Stones and Ruben Dias are archetypal Guardiola defenders, who move the ball well and have an important say in more than just the defending side of things.

Whilst Stones is quicker and able to cover ground more easily, Dias is often able to be the anchoring player and make ball-winning tackles look like child’s play. With the likes of Josko Gvardiol, Manuel Akanji, and Nathan Ake helping to fortify City's options, it is Stones and Dias who have become the bedrock to indomitable success. As they look set to win a fourth Premier League title in a row together, last season's treble campaign acts as just yet another overwhelming victory they helped command.

5 Steve Bruce & Gary Pallister

Manchester United

As Manchester United dominated the early years of the Premier League, they did a lot of it with real tactical acumen. This included a sturdy backline that had Steve Bruce and Gary Pallister anchoring it down. Both players weren’t known for their pace, but they had the technical and physical skills to shut things down quickly.

The duo was responsible for Manchester United winning three out of the first four Premier League seasons, as well as helping United’s rising academy stars to benefit from their know-how. It’s a partnership that truly cemented United as a title-winning machine in the Premier League era, as well as pioneering Ferguson's school of thought that defences won titles.

4 Kolo Toure & Sol Campbell

Arsenal

If Arsenal managers of past and present have one thing in common, clearly it's their sharp eye for a dauntless centre-back pairing. In the second of three Gunners' entries, Sol Campbell and Kolo Toure are the only partnership in the list, and further afield, that can boast the achievement of winning a Premier League title without losing a single game.

There will always be arguments over whether the 2003/04 Invincibles are the greatest club side in the English game. Regardless of the answer, though, Toure and Campbell's brilliance to grind out results when Thierry Henry and Co struggled to find more than a singular goal up top should never be trivialised.

3 Martin Keown & Tony Adams

Arsenal

If every duo listed in this article was to become a WWE tag-team partnership, then it would probably be Arsenal's Martin Keown and Tony Adams that would prove most difficult to beat. The veteran English hardmen made up one half of Arsene Wenger's hard-hitting defensive unit in the 90s, and their aerial prowess and ability to get the ball clear in a hurry helped the Gunners to two league and cup doubles in the 1997/98 and 2001/02 campaigns.

Never taking no for an answer, Keown and Adams were two of the remaining hardknock survivors of football's pre-commercialisation era. As the sport moved away from the two-footed, studs-up challenges that even officialdom would refuse to condemn, Arsenal's centre-backs continued to live in the olden times, but it proved successful before they handed the batons on to more technically gifted defenders like Campbell and Toure.

2 John Terry & Ricardo Carvalho

Chelsea

The Roman Abramovich era at Chelsea brought a galaxy of new superstars to join ones already proving their worth at Stamford Bridge. John Terry was already the team’s home-grown leader but the arrival of Ricardo Carvalho in 2004 added an extra layer of steel to the backline.

Together, Terry and Carvalho comfortably shut down any opponents coming their way and helped The Blues to consecutive league titles in 2005 and 2006. Furthermore, it was their no-nonsense approach that helped Chelsea put together an 86-game winning streak at Stamford Bridge over a 4-year period where they did not lose at all in the league, which is a record that stands to this day.

GIVEMESPORT Key Statistic: In the 2004/05 Premier League winning campaign, the two helped Chelsea smash the record for fewest goals conceded in a season (15).

1 Rio Ferdinand & Nemanja Vidic

Manchester United

If there is one defensive partnership that is the blueprint for success, it was the one between Nemanja Vidic and Rio Ferdinand. They were the main centre-back duo for the Red Devils between the mid 2000s and the early 2010s - and between them, they won no less than six Premier League titles, and they were nominated for the league's Team of the Season a combined total of 10 times.

Debate over the Premier League's greatest centre-back has raged ever since it's inception in 1992. But in a top five list, both Ferdinand and Vidic always feature. And while many great partnerships have been ruled one-sidedly, Ferguson was blessed to have two of the best at the same time. Not only were they a great team, they were exceptional individuals, too.