The 50-year-old former footballer – who played for the Red Devils from 1992 to 2004 – thinks the club has been a “s***show” in the years since legendary manager Sir Alex Ferguson retired and it doesn’t matter how high quality a coach they bring in now, it will take time to get their fortunes back on track.

He told FourFourTwo magazine: “For me, it’s fundamentally that the club is rotten from the bottom up at the minute.

“If you brought prime Sir Alex Ferguson back in, he wouldn’t be able to turn it around straight away, it would still take time.

2If you put Pep Guardiola in there, or Jurgen Klopp, it wouldn’t work either.

“Ultimately, I think the players we’re buying and the players that we’re able to buy aren’t at the level we used to have, so it’s about accepting the fact that it’s going to take five to eight years in order to get the club back to anywhere near winning the Premier League. It’s been a s*** show”.

His former teammate Paul Scholes agreed with Nicky’s assessment.

He said: “I agree. Ruben Amorim had an excuse last year, he couldn’t train – well, he could train, but every three days they had a game.

“This summer he had everything, they spent $200 million, there have been three weeks between some games, everything he could have wanted to get his style across.

“United have got to win games of football.”