“Nemanja, wooah, Nemanja, wooah, he comes from Serbia, he’ll fucking murder ya!” is the song you’ll hear loudly whenever Vidic goes in hard on a player. Vidic seems to play without fear and will put his head, body (or arm) in the way of anything to protect the goal.

Speaking with CNN World Sport, Vidic has shrugged off talk of him being a hard man, claiming the song helps his reputation, but is aware of how tough you have to be to succeed in this league.

“When you are playing football, it’s important – you want fans to love you because you play football for the fans,” he said. “When they are signing the song in the game, you feel very excited, and you do even more than you really can. I dunno. You let other players talk about it, but I think the song helps a bit. I think I learn in England, if you want to play, you have to be tough, especially as a defender you know, because the league is really tough, strong, physical, and I have to say in the beginning when I came, I had really hard time like I said, because of these things it’s so physical. I try to prepare myself for the years that come. I work so much in the gym, and obviously now, I have some benefits from that.”

Rio Ferdinand helps form the best defensive partnership in the league and one of, if not the best, in Europe. Vidic reckons the secret behind their success is the length of time they’ve been playing alongside each other, claiming it now comes as instinct.

“After six years, I think there’s nothing new really to know about each other,” he explained. “Now we play by instinct, it’s coming naturally. I have to say in the beginning we worked really hard to know each other, to understand each other, which is very important obviously and the success we have had has helped. We have a good partnership.”