The chase for Dan Ashworth officially lasted longer than Dan Ashworth himself as the sporting director has shockingly left Manchester United.
The five-month spell at Old Trafford comes as a huge surprise as he was widely regarded as the poster boy for Ineos’ new “best-in-class” executive structure.
Dan Ashworth’s Man Utd departure is reportedly engineered by Sir Jim Ratcliffe. Even though it has been presented as mutual, that’s hard to take at face value.
After all, a prized hire doesn’t depart like this unless something breaks down in communication/relationship. Here are three decisions that could have soured Sir Jim Ratcliffe on Dan Ashworth-
Backing Erik ten Hag in the summer/contract extension
United faced a huge decision in the summer on their manager. Erik ten Hag had overseen the club’s worst-ever Premier League finish but ended the campaign with an FA Cup.
The supporters were riding high on euphoria after that win and all of a sudden, the injuries seemed like a big mitigating factor.
Dan Ashworth’s immediate job was to make a decision on the Man Utd manager and he chose to back the incumbent. Ten Hag was given a contract extension of a year.
Not only was he given an extension, he was allowed to bring a whole new batch of coaching staff and United spent nearly £200 million in the summer on players that had the look of “Ten Hag signings” even though the team above him was in place now.
The window was a success and arguably the best one since Sir Alex Ferguson left so that’s a credit to Ashworth’s bank but the circumstances surrounding it haven’t aged very well. That brings us to the second point.
Delaying the Erik ten Hag sack
Once Ten Hag was backed, United were stuck in the sunk cost fallacy and the time it took them to get over it has arguably left Ruben Amorim in a no-win situation.
That is because Ten Hag didn’t show any signs of being able to improve things at the club, new coaching staff or not.
United started the season in shaky fashion and never recovered as things only went from bad to worse with only flickers of hope in between.
Apparently, those flickers were all that was needed to keep Ten Hag in the job for nearly three months into the season as the team went nowhere quickly.
So calm was the noise around him and so confident did he sound in the interviews that even his sacking came as a surprise despite the results cratering, such was the backing in the lead-up to it.
By letting things get as worse as they did, United left Amorim to walk into a situation where even Ruud van Nistelrooy’s mini-revival only had them in 13th, albeit five points off fourth.
It was reported then that Sir Jim Ratcliffe was in favour of pulling the trigger on him quicker but the team led by Ashworth wanted to back the manager. How the manager did after being backed probably weakened Ashworth’s position in Ratcliffe’s eyes and that’s where the next point comes in.
Omar Berrada, Ruben Amorim, and a Man Utd executive tussle
When Ruben Amorim arrived, it was reported that Omar Berrada played a key role in securing his signature, going as far as to travel to Portugal himself to seal the deal.
Berrada, even though he’s got a higher job profile than Ashworth, had a more holistic remit of responsibilities, and hiring a head coach is generally left to the sporting director, effectively the “CEO of footballing operations”.
More pertinently, unlike the announcement of Ten Hag’s contract extension, Ashworth’s comments were absent from the statement announcing Amorim’s arrival.
There could be a dissonance between the rest of the team and Ashworth over who the best man to take over from Ten Hag was. Gareth Southgate’s name repeatedly popped up and it was due to his connections with Ashworth every time.
However, the swiftness with which Amorim was sealed and Berrada played such a key role in it means that somebody was definitely overruled in that board meeting.
This announcement of Ashworth’s departure makes it easy to speculate who it was…
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