Ferdinand slams ‘stupid’ Man Utd star but reserves special praise for three men vs Liverpool
Man Utd legend Rio Ferdinand has heaped praise on Manuel Ugarte, Noussair Mazraoui and Diogo Dalot for their performances against Liverpool.
The Red Devils took a shock lead at Anfield on Sunday with Lisandro Martinez firing a shot in off the crossbar – but Liverpool were level within seven minutes when Cody Gakpo cut inside and curled in a lovely effort.
Mohamed Salah then converted a penalty for the Reds with 20 minutes of the match remaining before Man Utd winger Amad Diallo ensured there would be one last twist as the Ivorian equalised late on in a 2-2 draw.
And Man Utd legend Ferdinand was impressed by Ruben Amorim’s side against the Premier League leaders with the result moving the Red Devils up to 13th in the table.
Ferdinand said on his YouTube channel: “I thought yesterday was the first game that I’ve seen where it all came together as one in terms of effort, application, desire, commitment, which was a requirement here.
“If you’re going to get a result at Anfield then you need all of those, but also composure with the ball in possession, playing out and playing through the lines and also creating chances.
“Those three different elements haven’t fitted in together seamlessly in any one game yet really. This was the game where it all came together.
“I was just happy with the commitment because to get a result there you need to be committed and the manager’s words afterwards, it wasn’t about tactics, it was about effort more or less.
“For any player now hearing that, you know where you stand.”
Picking out individual players for praise, Ferdinand added: “I thought Ugarte was brilliant yesterday. I thought Mazraoui was brilliant, Dalot was top yesterday.
“But I don’t want to see good seven or eight out of ten this week and then four or five out of ten next week. That’s the benchmark, let’s keep it there and maintain it.
“It’s easy to get up for Anfield. Where you’re going to get your questions answered, really, is Southampton next week.
“But what they have to go back to is: what got us that result? We f***ing grafted, we got after people.
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“Sir Alex Ferguson said one of the proudest thing about all his teams was when the manager of an opposition team would come into his office after a game and go, ‘Phwoar, as good as your players are, all these names you’ve got, they run like a Conference team’.
“So going back to that, making sure that’s on point, will put these guys in a good place.”
Zirkzee missed a golden opportunity to test Alisson towards the end of the game and chose to pass to Harry Maguire instead, with the centre-back blazing the bobbling ball over the crossbar.
And Ferdinand was far from happy that the Man Utd forward decided to pass rather than shoot, he said: “After all of it, I would have gone in the changing room and gone, ‘Bruv, what type of stupidness was that?! What type of pass was that?! We could have won the game!’.
“But Zirkzee is lacking in confidence so he [Maguire] ain’t going to do that. It’s detail, bro. You know what it’s like? Talk to somebody like you want to be talked to. Pass how you want to receive. Same thing.”
