Manchester United legend Rio Ferdinand believes he has an answer to why Liverpool haven’t been able to maintain their near-perfect form as of late.
The Reds were battered 4-0 by Manchester City in their first outing as Premier League Champions, and registered unconvincing wins against Aston Villa and Brighton before this weekend.
On Saturday, Liverpool drew with Burnley – and even though the players did put in better performances, Nick Pope denied a win at Anfield for the first time in 18 months.
But former United defender Ferdinand thinks he knows what’s to blame. “Celebrations,” he told BT Sport (via the Echo). “We saw the pictures all over social media from the night that they won the league.
“There’s no doubt in my mind that there is a one or two percent fall-off when you win the league because, unless you’ve got the Champions League coming up after, you normally just sit there and chill.
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“I remember running past Wayne Rooney in a game once and he told me I stunk of alcohol, I said ‘yeah, I’ve been out all week’.”
It’s actually somewhat refreshing for such an icon of our biggest rivals to come out and just speak without any bias or hatred towards Liverpool.
To be fair, Ferdinand and Gary Neville are prime examples of that these days – and what Rio said about the title celebrations is absolutely bang on.
We could see it most at the Etihad, half of the team – particularly the defence – looked like they’d woke up in a random Manchester hotel a few hours before kick-off!