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What’s the story?
Former Manchester United defender Rio Ferdinand has picked Manchester City to win the Premier League for the third consecutive time, while he predicted another second-spot finish for Liverpool. According to the six-time Premier League winner, Tottenham Hotspur and Manchester United will finish third and fourth respectively in the battle for the top-four finish.
In case you didn’t know...
Manchester City have only strengthened their squad after piping Liverpool to the Premier League crown by the finest of margins last season. Pep Guardiola made several inclusions to his title wining squad and the Citizens seem to have all bases covered before the start of the season. The Premier League champions have signed Rodri and Joao Cancelo from Atletico Madrid and Juventus respectively, while left-back Angelino was re-signed from PSV Eindhoven as a cover for Benjamin Mendy and Oleksandr Zinchenko.
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Liverpool, meanwhile, seemed reluctant in signing big-name players this summer as Jurgen Klopp put more emphasis on keeping a strong squad together. Liverpool's three summer signings are youngsters Sepp van den Berg, Harvey Elliott, and goalkeeper Adrian, who replaced Simon Mignolet.
Ferdinand’s former club Manchester United had a mixed summer transfer window. Despite being linked with several players, including the likes of Paulo Dybala, Bruno Fernandes, Gareth Bale and Kalidou Koulibaly, the Red Devils only managed to get Daniel James, Aaron Wan-Bissaka and Harry Maguire on board.
The heart of the matter
In a recent interview with GiveMeSport, Ferdinand made his top-four prediction for 2019-20 Premier League season. He said,
“Man City, Liverpool - but by a bigger gap than last season - Spurs, Man United.”
When asked to shed some light on Manchester City and Liverpool’s recent dominance in the Premier League, the ex-Manchester United defender jokingly said,
“It hurts man, it hurts. I’ve got to speak about Liverpool and Man City winning things and being better than Man United at the moment.
“I’ve come into this punditry game at the wrong time because it hurts my soul having to talk like this.
“But as a pundit you’ve got to be honest, you’ve got to say it as you see it and those two teams are by far the better teams in the league at the moment.”
What’s next?
The first match of the 2019-20 Premier League season will see Liverpool take on Norwich City at Anfield tonight.
