‘One bit that I’ll give them’: Rio Ferdinand admits Liverpool have an excuse

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Rio Ferdinand is amazed by the slump at Liverpool. He does believe the Reds have one excuse, however.

The reigning champions were top a Christmas. Now they’re out of the title race and seven points off fourth. That’s an incredible drop-off.

But six back-to-back home defeats will do that. It’s form you barely expect from the team sitting rock bottom. Instead, it’s the champions who can’t even find the back of the net at home.

It’s something that amazes Rio Ferdinand, certainly, who says he’s never seen anything quite like the drop-off at Liverpool.

“It’s the biggest fall from grace I’ve seen,” he told his FIVE podcast. “Two Champions League finals back-to-back, they won one of them and then they won the league by a ridiculous margin.

“Then they have an absolute slump that’s never been seen before like this – it’s unreal.”

He does believe the Reds have one excuse for it all, though.

“The way it’s turned around, yeah we can look at injuries and stuff like that,” said Ferdinand. “Listen, I don’t think there’s even been a team that’s won the league that has been decimated like this, the way they have.

“That’s one bit that I’ll give them.”

The ex-Manchester United defender then pointed to the bigger issue – how do Liverpool get back to where they were?

What RTK has to say

Injuries are the reason for this slump, certainly. Put Virgil van Dijk, Joe Gomez, Joel Matip and Jordan Henderson back in the squad and Liverpool look much better.

But that’s not to say that Liverpool wouldn’t have gone backwards anyway. We don’t believe they’d have fallen anywhere near as far as this but injuries only explain so much.

Everyone looks exhausted, for one. Then there are certain players who have just had individual slumps that injuries and exhaustion don’t explain.

So while he can use injuries to excuse this particular run of awful form, it’s important we don’t ignore other factors. There would have been a drop-off anyway, just not as bad.

The Reds will likely have to rebuild parts of the squad this summer. Putting it all down to injuries won’t fix several worrying issues.