FORMER Manchester United players Rio Ferdinand and Owen Hargreaves reckoned the Red Devils would win TEN games in a row at one stage in the season.
Soon after Ralf Rangnick was appointed as interim boss United had a favourable run of fixtures on the horizon.
Rio Ferdinand and Owen Hargreaves predicted Man Utd to win 10 games in a row from December to February Credit: BT SPORT Speaking in early December Ferdinand and Hargreaves bravely predicted a maximum 30 points from the next 10 Prem games with none of the ‘Big Six’ on the immediate fixture list.
Looking at a graphic of the club’s upcoming games, which included now relegated Norwich and Burnley, plus the likes of Southampton and Brentford, Ferdinand seemed confident.
He said on BT Sport: “You look at that and you think ‘wow there’s not many there that would frighten you or put you on the back foot’.
“I think he’s [Ralf Rangnick] has got to go into these thinking ‘wow if we can come out of this in Southampton we should be in a really good position’.”
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Man Utd boss talks Maguire captaincy, Rangnick’s role and Ronaldo’s future Then Hargreaves went down the list and ticked them off one by one, saying: “That is win, win, win, win, win, win, win, win. I mean it should be.”
Presenter Jake Humphrey posed the question “Thirty points?” to which Hargeaves replied “Yeah, no seriously,” while Ferdinand chimed in “You would hope so”.
The Brentford and Brighton games were rescheduled due to Covid-19, but overall from the 10 games United picked up 19 points.
Defeat at home to Wolves was the only loss out of the 10.
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Norwich, Brentford, Brighton, Burnley, and West Ham were all beaten, but the Red Devils could only muster draws against Southampton, Aston Villa, and a point in the reverse fixture against Burnley.
But that was during the relatively promising opening period of Rangnick’s tenure.
And then it all seemed to fall apart.
In the end United only won 16 Prem games all season.
From the period between Ferdinand and Hargreaves’ confident predictions and the end of the season, the club picked up a lowly 34 points from the remaining 23 games.
So when the 10 bookmarked fixtures are taken out, the club amassed a meagre 15 points from the 13 games left that were not on the list.
The Red Devils finally ended the dire season on 58 points – their lowest total in Premier League history.
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I’m a doctor – here’s 4 signs of burnout you must never ignore West Ham’s defeat to Brighton on the final day meant that Manchester United finished sixth.
But it’s still a far cry from Ferdinand and Hargreaves’ brazen predictions, who reckoned they would pick up more than half of their final points tally in the space of 10 games.
Source: Soccer - thesun.co.uk