Legendary Manchester United defender Rio Ferdinand claims the Red Devils are out of the Premier League title race after ‘choking’ against Everton.
United blew their chance to keep the pressure on rivals Manchester City when Dominic Calvert-Lewin scored a last-gasp equaliser to force a 3-3 draw on Saturday.
The draw at Old Trafford means United are now five points behind City, who still have a game in hand.
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Ole Gunnar Solskjaer’s men have won just two of their last six league games, including a shock 2-1 defeat to bottom-placed Sheffield United.
And Ferdinand, who won six titles for United, believes this season’s challenge is well and truly over.
He said on his podcast Rio Ferdinand Presents FIVE: “You can’t defend it. At the end of the day Man Utd were sitting pretty at the top of the league.
“We didn’t come into this season expecting to be title challengers. We were too far behind Liverpool (last season). You can’t expect to have a turnaround that big to win the league, it’s impossible.
“But I’m like all the other fans. You see the league table, you look at the results, you get excited. When you put yourself in that position, Man Utd have to strike. You’re there now and there’s an opportunity.
“When there’s an opportunity you’ve got to go. The problem is we’ve let this opportunity slip through our hands. You can see Man City with their experience, they’ve smelt blood, they’ve put their heads down, they’ve gone.
“But United have stuttered, we’ve got the choke going, haven’t got it quite working properly. We have choked, it’s simple as that. I’d put us out of the title challenge unless we go on a run and we change our habits and our lack of consistency.
“But I haven’t seen enough to suggest we can go on a ten, 15-game winning streak. We’re tripping ourselves up all the time. It’s top four, we’ll finish second or third.”
