Rio Ferdinand says Liverpool once had a player who’d ‘give you more sleepless nights’ than Salah

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Speaking on his YouTube channel, Rio Ferdinand has been discussing the best forwards Liverpool have had in the Premier League era.

The Reds have been blessed with some absolutely incredible attackers over the past 30 years.

The likes of Fernando Torres, Robbie Fowler, Luis Suarez and Daniel Sturridge were all absolutely brilliant at Liverpool, and of course, Mohamed Salah is the current king of the Kop.

However, according to Ferdinand, the scariest Liverpool attacker to face in his prime was Michael Owen.

What’s been said?

Ferdinand and his co-hosts were discussing the greatest Liverpool attackers of this era.

“If I had to say in the Premier League, Mo Salah is number one, Suarez is number two, I’m also putting Torres ahead of him and I’m also putting Fowler ahead of him as well, Michael Owen is lucky to get into the top five for Liverpool in the Premier League era,” Ferdinand’s co-host said.

“No, you’re talking about over a career’s worth of football and their whole time. If you talk about the best year or two years at a club, as a defender playing against all of them, Owen keeps you up later than any of those others,” Ferdinand said.

The pundit then discussed playing against Salah, Fowler, Torres and Suarez before going back to speak about Owen:

“If we’re talking number nines, Suarez was a top player and a great player but in Michael Owen’s best season or two he’d give you more sleepless nights than all of the others,” Ferdinand concluded.

Frightening

There’s a reason that Michael Owen is the only one of all the mentioned players to have won the Ballon d’Or, at his peak, he was simply unplayable.

He had an incredible blend of pace and finishing ability, you couldn’t give him a single inch of space, and as a defender, it would have been easy to dread playing against him.

Ferdinand himself was one of the best defenders of his generation, but it sounds as though the prospect of facing Owen cost him a number of hours of sleep during his career.

If it weren’t for injuries, we’d arguably be talking about the greatest Premier League striker ever.