Manchester United legend Rio Ferdinand has backed Liverpool to reach the UEFA Champions League quarter-finals after their first-leg stalemate with Bayern Munich.
During his work as a pundit for BT Sport, Rio Ferdinand has claimed that Liverpool have what it takes to go through to the UEFA Champions League quarter-finals. The Manchester United legend pointed towards the Reds’ attacking prowess to aid them in their bid to beat Bayern Munich in the aftermath of the goalless stalemate in the first leg on Tuesday.
Tuesday bore witness to one of the most highly anticipated UEFA Champions League Round of 16 encounters, when Liverpool hosted Bayern Munich at Anfield in the first leg tie. While the match was quite an evenly contested affair, it ended without the goalkeepers having to pick the ball out of their own net – a goalless stalemate.
While the 0-0 draw may have been a sort of an anti-climax, the Reds might have a silver lining in that Bayern did not take any away goal back home. And, Manchester United legend Rio Ferdinand has given Liverpool his backing to qualify for the next knockout phase of the competition, iterating that their attacking prowess holds the key (quotes compiled by The Sun).
“I’m confident Liverpool will go through, I really am. Just because the attacking prowess that they’ve got, the devastation that they wreak. I’d be in that changing room thinking: ‘You know what boys, we’ve done well. We’ll win this. This is only the second time Liverpool have failed to score at home. You have to give credit to Bayern Munich who have come here with experience and shown that.”
“But when this Liverpool team wake up, they’ve got to back themselves. They have got to think to themselves: ‘We can go to the Allianz Arena and score. We’ve got to keep a clean sheet. If we keep ourselves solid at the back, we’ve got three or four of the best players going forward, such a quick devastating attack. We must be able to score away from home.’ That’s all I’d be thinking if I was them.”
Liverpool indeed boast one of the most potent attacking forces, with the first-choice trio of Mohamed Salah, Roberto Firmino and Sadio Mane scoring 44 goals between themselves – an outstanding tally. In addition to the aforementioned trio, Xherdan Shaqiri has chipped in with important goals as well, which adds more weight to Ferdinand’s comments.
The fact that a score draw will be enough to send Liverpool through to the quarter-finals stands them in good stead as well. In the end, it will all boil down to whether the attack performs better than it did on Tuesday, when the two sides meet in the second leg at Allianz Arena next month.
It remains to be seen if the Manchester United legend is proven to be correct, with Liverpool going through to the quarter-finals of the UEFA Champions League at the expense of Bayern Munich.
