Jones joined United from Blackburn Rovers for a fee thought to be in the region of £16.5 million after spurning the advances of the Anfield club.
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Speaking exclusively to FourFourTwo.com, Lawrenson was full of praise for Ferguson's young recruit, comparing him to Chelsea skipper Terry.
“I hate that sort of line when they say ‘oh yeah he’s the new such and such’,” Lawrenson said.
“But what I will say is that Jones reminds me a little bit of John Terry in the way that he plays.
“Fergie’s kind of looked at that position - with Chris Smalling also at the club - and thought, ‘I’m good now for five-10 years'. They've also got Jonny Evans, who isn't even in their top four centre-backs.
“But I think United have always thought, ‘look we’ll worry about the team when we need to pick the team’. If you have to leave people out like [Dimitar] Berbatov, like Smalling and Jones and one of the Da Silva boys or whatever, you just leave them out.”
"I think if they're all fit then you'd have to be a hell of a player to be in front of Ferdinand and Vidic,” he explained.
“But Rio doesn’t play that many games. Also, they've got the question of Smalling, he’s already a very, very good player.
“I think they’ll just look at Jones - Fergie might even sometimes use him in midfield - but I think he’ll try and play him as often as they can.
Pundit Mark Lawrenson was talking about the forthcoming season at the Kinect Sports for Xbox 360 football event at the Sports Café, Central London
