Rio: Evans Made The Right Decision To Stay

Rio Ferdinand has labelled young Reds centre-half Jonny Evans "fantastic" and claims the Northern Irishman made the right decision to stay at United, despite no guarantees of regular football.

Evans was a prime target for Sunderland last summer after impressing in the Championship during a loan spell at the Stadium of Light. But he opted to remain at Old Trafford, where Ferdinand says he's blossomed into a top-class defender.

"He's a fantastic young player," Rio Ferdinand told the Press Association. "For centre-halves it's always difficult to see the best of them at early ages. There's always a chance of them making mistakes but Jonny keeps that to a minimum.

"He's got a cool head on his shoulders. He's sat back and watched for a few years when he was younger. He went to Sunderland, did very well and they wanted to buy him, for obvious reasons.

"But he stuck to his guns, stayed here and last season he had opportunities to play. When he did so, he was fantastic."

And it wasn't just the odd Carling Cup game, either. Evans made 24 appearances in 2008/09, providing valuable cover for the established central-defensive pairing of Ferdinand and Nemanja Vidic.

But Evans, a full international and one of the game's most exciting defensive prospects, could easily have been lured by regular football elsewhere had Ferdinand not offered the youngster some valuable advice.

"I spoke to him in pre-season last year in South Africa," Rio said. "He was at a stage where he wanted to play every week. He'd been doing that the season before at Sunderland and he didn't want to come back and play for the Reserves again. He wanted to play first-team football.

"It's the same argument for any young player: Do you want to go and play for mid-table team or do you want to be in the squad of a team where you're going to get chances to play in a title-winning or European Cup-winning team?

"When you look at it like that it's a bit of a no-brainer. The manager didn't want to let him go anyway, but I think Jonny came round tothinking that it was better to be a part of the squad and play when the opportunities came."