Jonny Evans believes that new Northern Ireland manager Nigel Worthington has shown the type of character that the team will need to display in the fight to qualify for the final of Euro 2008.

Sixty-six times capped Worthington was appointed as successor to Lawrie Sanchez last Friday on an initial six-month contract.

He took over a team top of their group, but with Spain and Sweden both in action tomorrow night - plus the outcome of Saturday night's abandoned game between Denmark and Sweden to come on Friday - by the time his first game comes around Northern Ireland are expected to be third in the table.

Top spot is likely to be out of reach even if three points are collected against Liechtenstein in August.

Sanchez guided the team through a five-match unbeaten record - six if you include the 0-0 friendly draw against Wales - after losing 3-0 to Iceland in the opening game and with Northern Ireland sitting on 13 points at the halfway stage qualification is still a real possibility.

That means the pressure is on Worthington from the start and Evans points to that as a measure of the quality the new manager possesses.

"There is a lot of expectation for the new manager to live up to," said Evans.

"Whoever accepted the job after Lawrie Sanchez was going to get that and other managers may have stayed away from that and waited until things were at a low point before wanting to come into the job.

"I think Nigel Worthington has shown that he doesn't have any fear of coming into this situation and want to take over at this time and try to push things on takes character.

"Hopefully he can channel that into the squad when we get together for the next game and bring us on even further."

Evans has a remarkable record as an international footballer.

He made his debut as an 18-year-old against Spain last September and didn't look out of place in a fantastic team performance as David Healy's first international hat-trick gave Northern Ireland a 3-2 win.

The Manchester United youngster has played four times since then and as yet hasn't finished on a losing side.

All those games have been played at left-back and with the new manager occupying that position for many years, Evans may benefit from Worthington's experience.

"When you get together for international games it's all about preparing and getting organised," said Evans.

"It isn't really an environment for the manager to do a lot of coaching, so I don't think the fact that Nigel Worthington was a defender will have that much of an impact on me as a player.

"It may have more of an impact on the team as a whole, but I will take on-board any advice that he has for me.

"He's an experienced manager, he took Norwich City into the Premiership so that says a lot for him and hopefully he can have some success with Northern Ireland."

source：Belfast Telegraph