Best Ball-Playing Defenders In The Premier League This Season

Best Ball-Playing Defenders In The Premier League This Season

Ball-playing defenders are becoming more and more common in the Premier League. It makes sense – it’s generally a better idea to play the ball out from the back, rather than punting it long in the modern game.

With that being said, you need technically-adept defenders to be able to pull this off consistently. We’ve all seen what happens when it goes wrong – it isn’t pretty.

In this list, we’ll be looking at the best ball-playing defenders in the Premier League this season. Only centre-backs will be considered – no full-backs or defensive midfielders will feature (sorry, Declan Rice and Kieran Trippier).


In this piece, we’ll be looking at players from Manchester City, Crystal Palace and Arsenal. Can you guess who made the final cut?