England great Ferdinand hails Gomez' character

In spite of missing the summers World Cup due to an ill-timed injury, Joe Gomez has gone from strength to strength for club and country at the start of the current campaign. 

The young centre half's form has certainly not gone unnnoticed by one of England's former greats, Rio Ferdinand, who spoke wax-lyrical about the Liverpool defender this week.

Manchester United legend Ferdinand believes that Gomez is 'already on the march' to becoming the country's best defender. 

As well as starting ten out of 13 Premier League matches for Liverpool this season, Gomez played the full 90 minutes of England's crucial Nations League wins over Spain and Croatia.

On 'BT Sport's coverage of Liverpool's Champions League match with PSG on Wednesday, Ferdinand gave his thoughts on the progress made by the young defender so far this season. 

Describing what he thinks of the 21 year old, Ferdinand said: "He had a big injury when he first signed and he's shown character to come back. This is his first full season, and yes he's going to make mistakes positionally because he's a young defender and young defenders do that, but he doesn't make many. "

He added: "The raw materials he's got: the pace, the power, the desire, he's aggressive, very cool under pressure and great on the ball. He also plays off both feet and his pace to make recovery tackles if he does make a positional error at the moment he's been able to get out of trouble with his pace. "

When asked if he saw similarities between himself at this developmental stage and Gomez now, Ferdinand was clear. 

The former United defender admitted: "I do because I think he plays with freeness [and] he's fearless the way he plays. He was calm against Napoli away coming out with the ball but if he needs to put it in row Z he can do that. There is a maturity about him on and off the pitch that I really, really like."