Rio Ferdinand has been assessing whether Liverpool can now be considered as favourites to win the Champions League this season.
On Tuesday evening, the Reds maintained their 100% record in the competition with a narrow 1-0 victory away to Girona, with Mo Salah’s second-half penalty making it six wins out of six for the Merseyside giants.
As outlined by Sky Sports prior to today’s matches in the tournament, Opta calculations concluded that Arne Slot’s side are the likeliest club to lift the trophy in Munich on 31 May, with a 20.3% chance of ascending the winners’ podium at the Allianz Arena.
Ferdinand talks up Liverpool’s Champions League chances
Speaking on TNT Sports (via BBC Sport), Ferdinand was asked if he thinks Liverpool are now favourites for Champions League glory this season.
The ex-Manchester United defender replied: “Form-wise right now, yes, Liverpool have to be favourites but nothing is handed out at this stage. Form-wise, come March and April time it could be very different to now. You have to be a bit patient.”
Can Liverpool go all the way in the Champions League?
Ferdinand isn’t wrong in pointing out that a perfect record in the group/league phase doesn’t automatically correspond to success in the knockout stages, something to which the Reds can attest from previous years.
When we won the Champions League in 2005 and 2019, we scraped through the group with a win on the final matchday. By contrast, topping the pre-Christmas table in 2019/20 and 2022/23 counted for little as we were eliminated by clubs from Madrid in the round of 16.
However, what can’t be disputed right now is that, at the moment, nobody is better placed than Liverpool to go the distance in this year’s competition, with a top-eight finish all but assured after tonight’s result, and every team’s final placing could be significant due to the format of the knockout phase.
The higher that LFC finish in the league stage, the easier a route they’ll theoretically have from the round of 16 onwards. Theoretically is the keyword there, but finishing top ought to give us a relatively kind potential passage in the knockouts.
On that basis, Ferdinand is right to talk up the Reds’ chances of winning the trophy outright. One thing is for certain – each of the other 35 teams in the Champions League would love to be in our current position!
