Not many Premier League strikers regularly got the better of Nemanja Vidic but his old defensive partner Rio Ferdinand has revealed a former Manchester United striker blew him away upon his arrival at the club.
Sir Alex Ferguson paid Fulham £12.8million for Louis Saha’s services in January 2003 and although he was rarely a regular starter during his time at Old Trafford, given the competition for places and his checkered injury record, he was key component of several trophy winning sides.
Overall, Saha scored 42 goals in all competitions before he joined Everton and Ferdinand, in a chat with England internationals Declan Rice and Mason Mount for Copa90, recalled how the usually uncompromising Vidic was stunned by the speedy forward.
He said: ‘He was a massively underrated player. I remember Nemanja Vidic came to the club and he was like ‘Rio, what is this?’
‘Saha, in training he was so hard to play against because he had movement, he was skillful and he was strong.
‘He was one of them who wouldn’t even know that he’d step on your toes or get an elbow in your eye.’
Ferdinand and Vidic are regarded as one of the best centre-half pairings in United’s history and the former England star believes his game improved as a consequence of training against some of the best forward players of the Premier League era.
He added: ‘The thing is it was great for me as a centre back because our front line in training at certain times was Ruud van Nistelrooy, Ole Gunnar Solskjaer, Rooney, Diego Forlan, some mad names.
‘Then you’ve got to add to that Tevez, Berbatov, Louis Saha. You’d get to the weekend sometimes and you’d be playing against players who were nowhere near that level.’
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