Rio Ferdinand Exclusive: ‘We’re the champions and we have a strong enough squad to win everything’

The veteran defender is not cursed by a lack of confidence despite Manchester United’s indifferent start to the Premier League season

The early signs of the post Sir Alex Ferguson era at Manchester United are of a club struggling with their current passage of upheaval and transition.

Until recently, one of the club’s star strikers, Wayne Rooney, was trying to manufacture a move away from Old Trafford and there was a

failure to attract the majority of their key transfer targets over the summer.

In addition, the Premier League champions lie in an unfamiliar seventh place early on in the defence of their title after defeat by Liverpool at the weekend.

Needless to say, Rio Ferdinand paints a very different picture, one of a happy ship revelling in any potential criticism despite the addition of just Marouane Fellaini for a seemingly inflated £27.5million and Uruguayan right-back Guillermo Varela since David Moyes succeeded Ferguson.

“We’ve got a strong enough squad to win everything,” says Ferdinand. “We won the League at a canter last season and we’ve not become a bad team overnight. We believe strongly in what we’ve got. And anyway, you can’t judge the league after three games. We’ll have to wait and see where we end up.”

United, in particular, and the Premier League as a whole have undergone something of a makeover this summer. As well as Ferguson’s departure, Jose Mourinho is back at the helm at Chelsea, while Manchester City replaced Roberto Mancini with Manuel ­Pellegrini.

The season has already delivered a few surprises, with Liverpool top of the table boasting the only 100 per cent record while big-spending City came unstuck against newly-promoted Cardiff.

“I’d prefer if things didn’t change and we could win the League title easily obviously,” adds Ferdinand, speaking as an ambassador for the Jaguar Academy of Sport. “But it’s not always that easy. There have been a lot of personnel and manager changes at the top and that makes it more interesting for the punters. Change isn’t bad.

Sir Alex Ferguson used to say that no one person is bigger than Manchester United Football Club, himself included despite how big a personality he is. So, you just have to move on and not mope.”

With or without Ferguson and despite a stuttering start to the season, Ferdinand remains confident that the club’s cream will once again rise to the top in all competitions.

“We still have a burning ambition to win things — that never goes out and never goes down,” he says. “When you win, you kind of become a machine of wanting to win more. It’s that DNA in ourselves and the club, that’s just part and parcel of being a Manchester United footballer.

“You want it to be like last year but it’s not always like that. It’s good to fight for things, good to earn the right to win. We understand that every year, that’s the way it is.”

The Premier League title remains a very obvious target but Ferdinand insists it is no more important than any other trophy to the club this season despite their domination of English football’s top division since it was rebranded in 1992. Such is Ferdinand’s appetite for success, he refuses to prioritise any of the four competitions in which United will compete.

“I want all of them,” he says. “We want to win everything. It’s not a case of we want this one more than that one. It’s not the way. Look at Robin van Persie. He’s a professional and has a hunger to win, that’s why he came to Manchester United.”

So what of the Moyes effect at the club? Ferdinand is not ashamed to admit that the change of manager left him worrying about his own playing future. But he seemingly need not have worried — he has played every Premier League minute under the Scot so far this season.

“It’s natural to worry about things going on and you wonder, ‘will the manager like me or play me’?” he says. “But everyone had that, were able to start from a clean slate and had the chance to impress him from the beginning of the season.”

As for life under Moyes, he says: “He just wants to continue the success we’ve had. He has a slightly different approach obviously, with some different but very good people around him with very much the same squad as last season. So things haven’t changed hugely, we’re moving forward in the same way with different ideas.”

Ferdinand is well aware that, as a central defender at the age of 34 and at the start of his 12th season at Old Trafford since his then British record transfer fee of £29.1m, he is approaching the end of his playing career but he is refusing to look past this season in terms of his career longevity.

“I’m only looking to the end of the season,” he says. “I’d like to look further but there’s no point as I’ve no idea if I’ll get injured or what. I know I can’t play every game of the season any more. I know I can’t run up and down the field like I used to. Like Scholesy and Giggs, you have to adapt, to become wiser, use your experience and make quicker decisions.”

Having played his 300th Premier League game for the club last month, the likelihood, on current form, is that many more will follow, in part because of his ongoing desire to improve as a player. That is for the future. Ferdinand’s immediate focus is to test himself against some of the big-name arrivals who moved to the Premier League this summer.

“You want the best players to come to the league for added excitement but also to see where you are as a player,” he says. “The players that have arrived are great to watch and learn from.”

The players in question are more likely to be against him rather than with him, such have been the machinations of this transfer window.

Ferdinand, though, is confident his club will once more finish at the top of the pile.

Rio Ferdinand is an ambassador for the Jaguar Academy of Sport, which aims to nurture and inspire British sporting excellence - www.jaguaracademyofsport.co.uk

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