Former centre-back Rio Ferdinand believes Manchester United have enough about them to secure a top-four finish this season - but has conceded that nobody in pursuit of the final Champions League spot is taking charge of the situation.
United dropped out of the top-four on Tuesday evening following their 1-1 draw with Burnley at Turf Moor and West Ham United's slender 1-0 win over Watford.
Ralf Rangnick's side, who welcome Southampton to Old Trafford on Saturday lunchtime, slipped a further place down the ladder on Thursday evening, falling to sixth as a result of Arsenal's 1-0 win at Wolves.
With the likes of United, Arsenal, Tottenham Hotspur and West Ham all struggling for momentum at this moment in time, Ferdinand, who believes United will squeeze into the top-four, believes all four sides are currently looking each other and waiting for somebody to take charge of the situation.
Ferdinand, addressing United's top-four ambitions, told BT Sport : "There's hope. There's always hope. But I spoke about it before: there is nobody fighting for the top-four, standing out as the outstanding candidate, the leading candidate, who can string five wins together or go unbeaten for ten games.
"None of them have proven that yet so it is up for grabs. None of the teams fighting in that area, Arsenal, West Ham, Man United and Spurs, especially, could sit here and say, 'You know what, we're feeling in the right frame of mind, we're getting consistent results and performances to stake a claim'.
"I think they are looking at each other and going: 'I don't know what they're going to do, and I don't know what we're going to do, either'.
"I think Man United will get there, I just think they'll be able to get the goals to win the right amount of games to get into the top-four."
Although Ferdinand believes his former side will have enough about them to get over the line and secure a spot in next season's Champions League, he suggested that they will have to improve on the overall performance they produced against Burnley, despite an encouraging showing in the first 45 minutes.
"I was at Burnley the other day," he added. "The team produced a Jekyll and Hyde performance; in the first half you were thinking: 'Yes, there is something there'. You could see that something was beginning to come together.
"But in the second half, it was like a totally different team who weren't ready or mentally prepared for a certain onslaught from a home team like Burnley.
"They didn't weather the storm."
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