5 best captains in Premier League history

#3 Vincent Kompany - Manchester City

Brighton & Hove Albion v Manchester City - Premier League

Manchester City's rebuild under new ownership saw no shortage of funds and no shortage of quality personnel. However, there are some things that money cannot buy. But they had an admirable Vincent Kompany leading the side and that somehow made Manchester City's big money-powered upgrade digestible to many.

Kompany's influence at Manchester City went beyond the pitch and he is a great human being who will not be forgotten by the good folks of Manchester for the amount of charity work he has done.

The Belgian was a man for the big occasion and always stood up and delivered when the situation needed him the most. He even went out on that note in his final season, scoring an absolute scorcher from range to break the deadlock in the game against Leicester City to get Manchester City three invaluable points to help them shake Liverpool off their back.

Kompany won four Premier League titles with Manchester City and his presence was sorely missed in the 2019/20 season as Pep's side struggled to replicate their form of old without their captain egging them on.

#2 John Terry - Chelsea

John Terry was a leader of men and he was able to bring together some of the greatest players to have graced the Premier League and unify them in a quest to break the duopoly exercised over the league title by Manchester United and Arsenal.

Terry is one of the greatest centre-backs of all time and he was just as adept with the ball at his feet as he was without it. Jose Mourinho was able to transform Chelsea into one of the best teams in Europe thanks to John Terry's leadership qualities.

Mourinho's expensive squad went out fighting like every game was their last and they reaped the rewards for it, winning back-to-back Premier League titles in the 2004/05 and 2005/06 seasons. Terry captained Chelsea for 13 years from 2004 to 2017 and won five Premier League titles along the way.

#1 Roy Keane - Manchester United

The greatest of them all. You didn't go to play football with Roy Keane. You went to war with him. He'd leave his heart bleeding on the ground if that's what it took for him to win a game for Manchester United. The belligerent, unforgiving Irishman was as old school as they come and will forever be remembered as one of the Premier League greats.

Keane inherited the captain's armband from Eric Cantona and had already won four Premier League titles by then. He then led a group of youngsters to a continental treble in the 1998/99 season and won four Premier League titles in the seven seasons he spent as captain.

Keane was all about that winning mentality and his run-ins with Patrick Vieira, particularly his confrontation with the Frenchman in the tunnel at Highbury in 2005, epitomizes what and how much leading Manchester United as captain meant to the absolute mental commander of Ferguson's cruise ship.

About the author

Shambhu is a European and international football journalist at Sportskeeda who focuses on previews, listicles and news articles. An ardent Manchester United supporter since before his teenage years, he started following the Red Devils by age 10 watching MUTV on television. Shambhu is also a highly-revered rapper and a playback singer on Spotify, having a whopping 1 million monthly listeners.

For his articles, Shambhu believes in triple-checking every piece of information, relying on trusted websites like Transfermarkt and Opta, and staying away from speculative publications. He believes that his law degree helped him to be more articulate and meticulous with his content and one of his core strengths is seamlessly involving emotion in his write-ups owing to the love for the sport. For Sportskeeda, has done exclusive interviews with Spanish legends Gaizka Mendieta and Fernando Morientes so far, and his articles boast of a huge readership of close to 50 million.

Shambhu's favorite footballer is Lionel Messi, and the Argentine attaining glory in 2022 is his favorite FIFA World Cup moment. He believes only Kylian Mbappe and Erling Haaland could replicate Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo's rivalry in the years to come. His favorite manager is Sir Alex Ferguson due to the Scot's unmatched longevity at the top.

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Edited by Shambhu Ajith