Rio FerdinandRio Ferdinand has had a complicated relationship with United fans in his relatively short career at United so far. His fancy London ways don’t appeal to us much, he was booed for failing to sign a new contract straight away following his ban… then he scores two goals in two seasons against the dippers. There are several things which can win us over, and sticking it to the scousers in injury time is certainly one of them.

Rio Ferdinand is a winner and the player I think is most suited to take over the captain’s armband when Neville retires, which may be sooner than we’d like to acknowledge. He was our Man of the Match against Liverpool on Sunday, dealing with any sniff of an attack, leaving Torres to make no impact on the match.

He has today rubbed the salt in the wounds of the suffering Liverpool fans, who had to watch their team be dealt their fifth defeat in the past six United visits to Anfield. Ferdinand has today mocked the Liverpool team by claiming they thought they were good enough to beat us, but didn’t have what it takes on the day.

“Nothing tastes much better than going to Anfield and winning as a Manchester United player,” said Ferdinand. “It was huge for our confidence and a fantastic feeling. They thought they had a good chance of beating us. They’ve been playing well and have the players to beat us. But we were resolute all over the park. Our wide men, forwards and midfielders all defended together. That’s a sign of a team that’s strong and well bonded. That is exactly what we are. The morale in the squad is unbelievable.”

I imagine this moral boost will be good enough to see us through this weekend, with a different set of scousers to beat!