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Liverpool legend Steve Nicol thinks that Ruben Amorim has to show strong character at Manchester United and follow the process Jurgen Klopp went through at Anfield to make the Red Devils competitive.

 

Manchester United parted ways with Erik ten Hag after a disappointing start to the season, which has left them 14th in the Premier League table.

 

Sporting Lisbon coach Ruben Amorim is expected to be the man that succeeds Ten Hag in the Old Trafford dugout.

 

 

Nicol is of the view that Amorim will have to take a page from Klopp’s book to move on 90 per cent of the players in the Red Devils squad to build his own team and thinks that the Portuguese has to show strong character to do so.

 

He also stressed that Manchester United’s progress under Amorim must be visible even if they fail to win trophies at first and stated that he will need the backing of the club hierarchy to succeed.

 

 

“He has to have really strong character because this is going to take time and because you see that team, probably 90 per cent of that team is going to have to move on”, Nicol told ESPN.

 

“But what he has to do is kind of do what Klopp did.

 

 

“He had to move everybody on, which he did, but it took time, but every time you watched them, you could see something was coming. You could see a difference; you could see it was getting better.

 

“Even though they were not winning games, they were taking a huge step forward.

 

“As long as he can get his team to do that, then he will be fine, but if he does not and he does not have the character to handle when things are not going well at United, then nothing is going to change.

 

“Obviously he is going to have to have the backing and the recruitment, which is absolutely the key.

 

“If the recruitment is good and they get it right, then he will succeed and he will go forward.”

 

Liverpool looked at Amorim as an option to succeed Klopp, but ultimately went with Arne Slot.

 

Manchester United look set to have Amorim in the dugout towards the end of November after reaching an agreement with Sporting Lisbon.