Steven Gerrard has surprised everyone by placing Jude Bellingham of Borussia Dortmund among his top five midfielders in the world right now.
The Aston Villa manager is regarded as one of the best midfielders in history, having scored 185 goals in 710 appearances for Liverpool and 21 goals in 114 England outings.
Gerrard now welcomes his former club to Villa Park on Wednesday night, and former Three Lions teammate Rio Ferdinand caught up with him ahead of the game to ask him a few brief questions.
When asked by the former Liverpool player for BT Sport to identify his top five midfielders playing anywhere in the globe right now, Villa manager Steve Bruce included a couple of surprising names.
Gerrard first mentioned Borussia Dortmund and England midfielder Bellingham, who has already earned 12 England caps at the age of 18 and has piqued Liverpool's interest thanks to his Bundesliga achievements.
The 41-year-old said he 'absolutely likes' seeing Bellingham play before picking a more obvious option in Manchester City and Belgium midfielder Kevin De Bruyne, who he said he 'absolutely loves' watching.
Gerrard goes on to say that he was especially looking for attacking midfielders, before praising Chelsea and England midfielder Mason Mount, whom he said he 'loves' seeing because of 'what he is doing.'
After giving himself more time to consider his options, Gerrard added Mateo Kovacic, a Blues teammate of Mount's, to his list, before breaching his rule of sticking to attacking players and limiting his picks to five with Fabinho and Rodri.
But Gerrard singled out De Bruyne as his top option from the five - barring his own Villa players, whom he would 'place before anyone' - because he thinks he sees attributes in the Belgian that he has seen in all of the fantastic midfielders he has faced. Kevin De Bruyne is an absolute specialist midfielder in my opinion. I see elements of all of the top midfielders I've faced in him. He is a mixture of all of them. I believe he is the best.'
Gerrard also discussed his hardest opponent, Patrick Vieira of Manchester United and Arsenal, saying that 'you always knew you were in a football battle against those two.'
When Claude Makelele moved to Anfield to play as a No 10 behind Fernando Torres, he joined the pair as a 'top' former Chelsea midfielder. When asked to compare himself to Frank Lampard and Paul Scholes, Gerrard avoided discussing himself, instead describing the Everton manager as 'ruthless in terms of numbers,' but adding that the former Manchester United player controlled games more naturally.
He went on to describe his former England teammates as "top but in very different ways," as well as the honour of being "speaking in the same sentence as them."
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