Rio Ferdinand says Liverpool need to treat defeat in the way Alex Ferguson used to do

Speaking to BT Sport (h/t Express), ex-Manchester United player Rio Ferdinand advised Liverpool to get over the Atalanta defeat and bounce back, just like Alex Ferguson used to do in similar circumstances.

Liverpool were handed a shock defeat to Italian side Atalanta on Wednesday night at Anfield. Klopp’s men lost 2-0 as the heavily rotated Liverpool side failed to break down the Atalanta defence. This was the Reds’ first defeat inside 90 minutes at Anfield since September 2018.

This was Liverpool’s first loss in Europe this season. Before this, the Reds had won all 3 of their UEFA Champions League group stage matches, including the 5-0 thrashing of Atalanta in Bergamo earlier this month. The Reds are still top of the group, 2 points ahead of both Ajax and Atalanta.

But Rio Ferdinand offered the German manager some advice and spoke about how Alex Ferguson would react to similar circumstances.

“From experience, you learn more (when you lose). You self-analyse, you look a little bit deeper when you don’t win a game or you don’t perform as well. When we were winning it was all rosey, you win a game and it’s just onto the next one whereas when there’s a problem, actually you start looking back at what the problems were. [Ferguson] was never too high when we won and never too low when we lost.”

Ferdinand further added that he learned the attitude to shake off defeat and bounce back once he joined United, and mentioned that Liverpool cannot afford to ponder too much on defeat considering their busy fixture list.

“That was one of the big things I learned when I went to Manchester United. I used to be down in the doldrums when we lost or I didn’t perform well, and I used to get that hangover for maybe three or four days. A big club like Liverpool, where they are now, they’re back out every two or three days so they can’t afford to have that.”

We now travel to the Amex on Saturday to take on Brighton and Hove Albion in the Premier League. Jurgen Klopp would be hoping that the team picks itself up from the disappointing result midweek and ‘goes again’.