Premier League icon says he kept Luis Suarez ‘quiet’ with the one defender he ‘knew was better’ than him

EXCLUSIVE: A former Premier League star has reminisced over teaming up with a Champions League winner to keep Luis Suarez ‘quiet’.

Playing alongside this English international brought this centre-back’s game to the next level.

Anton Ferdinand teamed up with Wes Brown to deal with Luis Suarez

Throughout his career, Anton Ferdinand played alongside a plethora of talented defenders.

However, it wasn’t until he joined forces with Wes Brown at Sunderland that the athlete truly believed that he had met his match.

Luckily, the pair quickly bonded and formed a solid partnership, once having to put it all on the line to keep Luis Suarez at bay.

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In an exclusive interview with Sporf, Ferdinand explained: “I think Wes Brown was one of the first players, and we’re talking seven-eight years into my footballing career, where I was finally playing with somebody who I knew was better than me, had won so much more than me.

“I’d played with players who’d done more in their careers than I did, but I was really confident in myself, and it was the first time I was playing with someone, and I had to prove I was better than them. Because I was so used to having to prove people wrong with Rio, it almost lit a fire under my belly. I had a fantastic time with Wes Brown.

“We played in some big games, we went to Anfield for the first game of the season and did really well there, played against Luis Suarez and Andy Carroll, and kept them quiet.”

Anton Ferdinand had a wild time on Ricky Sbragia’s unofficial stag do

Playing alongside Brown isn’t the only positive memory Ferdinand has from his time at Sunderland.

On one occasion, he ended up flying out to Spain with Ricky Sbragia and his teammates for a truly memorable trip.

The 40-year-old laughed: “It wasn’t his official stag do, we had a mid-season break in Sevilla, that ended up being like his stag do. He was our manager at the time. It was more about galvanizing the team. We were in a relegation battle.

“One thing I am happy with about my career is that I’ve been involved in a few relegation battles, but I’ve never been relegated. I’ve always managed to beat it. A lot of my learnings throughout the years, especially at West Ham, was togetherness, galvanizing the team and making sure we feel like a band of brothers, anything outside of the dressing room is just noice;

“Ricky Sbragia’s stag do definitely did that for us. It galvanised us and we ended up going on a run that kept us in the Premier League.”

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