Sir Alex Ferguson has backed Jürgen Klopp to be a success at Liverpool, admitting he is “worried” about the German’s potential impact.

Klopp was appointed on a three-year contract to succeed Brendan Rodgers at Anfield, with optimism high that he can deliver a title challenge during his time on Merseyside. Ferguson, speaking to ESPNFC, said he thought the German would do a good job.

“Well it’s a good appointment. I admire him,” Ferguson said. “I know Jürgen pretty well through our meetings at [Fifa] coaches’ classes in Geneva.

“Strong personality, very strong, very stubborn, determined and his performances, and his career at Dortmund was a stellar rise to the top and I think he’ll do very well. I don’t like saying that, being Liverpool, because I’m worried about it but, no, he’ll do well.”

Klopp insisted that working with Liverpool’s transfer committee will not be a problem as long as he had the “first and the last” word on players coming in and out of the club but Ferguson cast doubt on the process.

“If you don’t trust your manager, why have him there? You’ve got to trust your coach,” he said. “Here’s the man that should be deciding which kind of player he wants, the type of player, position he wants, his character he wants. It’s the manager who knows more than anyone about what he needs as a coach.

“And I think that, there’s a lot of this happening in the game now, these Moneyball ideas about looking at statistics of players and bypassing the manager’s thoughts, and I think it’s wrong.

“Why give him a job if he can’t do it? When they’re sitting around that table to appoint a manager, do they say, well: ‘He can be part of the committee?’ That’s wrong, and I don’t think Jürgen Klopp will accept that.”