Rio Ferdinand urges Manchester United to move for Pep Guardiola

Rio Ferdinand has urged Manchester United to make a move for Pep Guardiola – or risk losing out on him for ever. The current Bayern Munich manager is expected to make an announcement about his future after Saturday's game against Hannover and is thought not to be renewing his contract with the German club.

The Spaniard has been widely tipped to join Manchester City next summer but United, who were eliminated from the Champions League and defeated by Bournemouth last week amid continuing doubts about Louis van Gaal’s management, have also been mentioned in connection with his services. There has been no obvious appetite at United for a change at the top but Ferdinand is concerned that an opportunity to attract Guardiola would not come around twice.

“The thing with Manchester United is that he will go to one Premier League team and won’t be going to another [AFTER THAT],” Ferdinand said. “There is one chance – you have one chance to get him. He won’t go to Manchester City and then to United; he’s not going to go to Chelsea and then United. It won’t happen, so you’ve got one chance to get the best manager on the planet.”

Ferdinand, who made 455 appearances for United between 2002 and 2014, has been critical of the team’s style under Van Gaal and the perceived lack of excitement during his reign. He says the club should ask themselves whether Guardiola would be an improvement on the Dutchman, whose intention to depart Old Trafford when his contract expires in 2017 could in theory make a severance more straightforward than with a longer-term incumbent.

“Is [GUARDIOLA]better than what they’ve got?” he said. “That’s what Man United and City should be asking. If the answer is yes then you go for it, surely. It’s like with the best players in the world – if someone like Ronaldo or Messi becomes available, everyone is interested. I don’t think it’s different with a great manager. The best manager in the world is definitely Guardiola and when he becomes available people are going to be interested, and I think United are no different.”

The United job is a perfect opportunity to create a “legacy”, the BT Sport pundit Ferdinand believes, and would be an ideal fit for Guardiola who has won three La Liga, two Bundesliga and two Champions League titles in his managerial career with Barcelona and Bayern. “Every manager on the planet, probably bar the man at Manchester City, would love the Man United job,” Ferdinand said.

“It’s a huge job. Especially now, it’s a job where, if you go in and do well, you’ll be seen as a hero – someone who has turned it around. It’s a tantalising job. It’s a job where you could create something with legacy. That’s what Pep Guardiola likes to do, but he’s got options. People talk about Man City, Chelsea, Arsenal. It’s not going to be easy.”

José Mourinho is among those who Ferdinand believes would jump at any chance to revive United’s fortunes. Ferdinand says the Chelsea players must take some blame for their manager’s dismissal on Thursday, and links the situation to that faced by United at the close of David Moyes’ short tenure, which ended during the defender’s final season at Old Trafford.

"It was the same with David Moyes, " Ferdinand said. "It wasn't just his fault – the players have to take some responsibility too. This season it hasn't gone as well as [CHELSEA]would have liked, so they are going to get criticised and you've got to take that on the chin. In professional football, in sport, in any walk of life, you don't want criticism but when it's on your doorstep and you haven't performed the way you should – and people know you haven't – then you've got to take it."

That criticism included Mourinho’s assertion, after Monday’s defeat at Leicester, that his players had “betrayed” him, and Ferdinand accepts that may have been the final straw for his relationship with the Chelsea squad. “I think when the manager uses that word, it makes it difficult for people to look at it purely football-wise,” he said. “When the word betrayal is used, the players will have seen that and maybe they wouldn’t have taken to that too kindly. To see a manager come out and say he feels betrayed by the players, there maybe wasn’t any way back after that.”

Watch Manchester United v Chelsea on Monday 28 December from 5:30pm live and exclusive on BT Sport 1. Visit btsport.com for more info

(Guardian service)