During a recent interview with Rio Ferdinand posted via his official podcast X account, the former Manchester United defender took a calm, realistic approach to the growing talk surrounding the club’s apparent improvement.
Instead of joining the excitement, he pushed back gently against the idea that United have fully turned the corner, saying the team is still somewhere in the middle of that process.
Watch the video below:
Softfootball understands that when he was asked directly whether United had completed their turnaround, Ferdinand, who recently turned 46 earlier this month, didn’t hesitate. He explained that progress is happening, but the team isn’t out of the woods just yet.
He said:
I still think we’re turning the corner. I don’t think we’ve turned it. I think we’re in the middle of the, we’re not a full lock.
You’ve still got a bit to go to get around to kind of make sure you get the corner and you don’t hit anything on the way around.
Stephen Howson, who joined the discussion, offered his own perspective on how expectations have shifted this season. Earlier on, during United’s rocky start, finishing seventh or eighth might have felt acceptable. But with the team slowly climbing, he admitted that ending the season in those spots would now feel like falling short.
He said:
It certainly does, and it was still like, what, quarter of the way into the season.There’s no sunglasses and stuff like that coming. But I think expectations have changed.
I probably would have been pretty content with like a top seven or eight finish this season. If we finished seven, four, eight from where we could do now, I’d probably feel like we’ve fell off a little bit.
I don’t expect us to finish top four. I think it would be nice if we did, but I reckon we’re more than good enough to finish top six. Depending how we ride out this.
Howson also pointed to a few things that could influence the team’s momentum: with Sesko out for 5 weeks due to injury and Mbuemo set to participate in the AFCON with Cameroon, these are things he pointed to as defining factors.
He said:
Sesko five weeks and an AFCON, if it goes well we could end up inside top four because it’s a poor league.
The conversation ended up capturing the mood around Manchester United perfectly: cautious optimism. The team is moving in the right direction, but both men made it clear that the journey isn’t finished yet.
