“There’s still a lot to improve in Manchester United, but the great thing about the league at the moment is that I feel the quality in this league isn’t as great as it’s been over the years, so you drop a point here or there, it doesn’t have a huge effect because no one is putting a great run together”.
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And Ferdinand has defended under-fire van Gaal, admitting it is all about winning trophies.
United have been strongly criticised in the press after their disappointing 0-0 home draw against PSV Eindhoven in the Champions League on Wednesday night, with some familiar faces weighing into the debate.
Former Manchester United defender Rio Ferdinand has insisted that David de Gea is the best goalkeeper in the world right now, ahead of Bayern Munich star Manuel Neuer.
“Given that the Man United hierarchy looked beyond the man’s CV, they knew they were getting a manager who played a precise, possession-based game”.
The overarching point of Ferdinand’s article was that while Van Gaal and Manchester United have enjoyed good results to this point, the door is open for their opponents to expose their defensive posture. The Scot took over at Old Trafford in the mid-1980s and transformed a team from also-rans into title winners.
“If I’m a central midfielder facing [Bastian] Schweinsteiger and Morgan Schneiderlin, I would not be anxious”. They pose zero threat, ‘ Ferdinand said. Paul Scholes and Roy Keane are among many who have been quite vocal with their disappointment and have labelled the side as “boring” and “ineffective”. They just sit in front of the back four venturing forward for set-pieces.
“Ferguson got rid of players who didn’t buy into the Man United way, for one, or weren’t capable of being intense every day”, Ferdinand said on ESPN. Every time I see signs of progress like with the display at Watford I’m immediately let down again.
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United dominated English football for large periods of the last two decades, and Rio Ferdinand – one of his greatest successes – has revealed that Ferguson’s key to triumph was keeping players who bought into the club’s philosophy.
