Rio Ferdinand takes fresh swipe at Joshua Zirkzee after Harry Maguire's last-gasp Anfield miss

Rio Ferdinand has blasted Joshua Zirkzee for his pass to Harry Maguire in Manchester United's draw with Liverpool that saw the centre-back miss a golden chance to win the game.

United put in a spirited display at Anfield to draw 2-2 against Arne Slot's league leaders, going 1-0 up through Lisandro Martinez's strike before Liverpool turned the game on its head through Cody Gakpo and Mo Salah's goal from the spot.

But Ruben Amorim's side rallied as Amad Diallo scored a late equaliser to send the visitors' bench wild and earn a deserved point when many had predicted a heavy defeat amid their recent struggles.

However, United could have won the game in stoppage time after Zirkzee cut the ball back to Maguire - only for the defender to agonisingly blaze over the bar.

Many fans blamed Maguire for the poor miss, though some argued the fault lied with Zirkzee for putting too much pace on the cross. That meant the ball bounced up awkwardly, with Maguire unable to keep the shot down.

Former United centre-back Ferdinand was raging with Zirkzee and said he would have had words with him in the dressing room after the game if he was a player.

He told his Rio Ferdinand Presents podcast: "After all of it, I would have gone in the changing room and gone, 'Bruv, what type of stupidness was that?! What type of pass was that?! We could have won the game!'.

"But Zirkzee is lacking in confidence so he [Maguire] ain’t going to do that. It’s detail, bro. You know what it’s like? Talk to somebody like you want to be talked to. Pass how you want to receive. Same thing."

Ferdinand did reserve praise for Manuel Ugarte, Noussair Mazraoui and Diogo Dalot after United upped their intensity at Anfield and prevented the Reds from playing their game - but urged the team not to let their performance levels dip in the coming weeks.

Image: Getty Images) Getty Images)

"I thought Ugarte was brilliant yesterday," he added. "I thought Mazraoui was brilliant, Dalot was top yesterday. But I don’t want to see good seven or eight out of ten this week and then four or five out of ten next week. That’s the benchmark, let’s keep it there and maintain it.

"It’s easy to get up for Anfield. Where you’re going to get your questions answered, really, is Southampton next week. But what they have to go back to is: what got us that result? We f***ing grafted, we got after people."

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