Dan "The Gardener" Ashworth Has Left | Venit, vidit, non vicit

dubplate warrior said:
Wheeler is one of United's most reliable sources in recent years. Not really sure what to make of this to be honest. At least we didn't end up with Gareth.

Also sounds like he wanted to keep Erik. Maybe getting rid was wise despite the optics.
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No he isn't not even close bonafide United Sources are Ducker , Whitwell and Stone who basically acts as United's conduit .

Ornstein is the one who usually gets the scoop, rest can be ignored more or less unless above mentioned corroborate them.
 
To call Ashworth into a meeting in the evening, after the match when he's with his family tells me that there was something more serious than a liking for Southgate and a dislike of the coach's preferred formation.
 
One positive out of this whole fiasco, maybe it puts a rocket up the arse of some of the players.

"Look we got rid of a guy we really wanted after 5 months, we'll get rid of you too".

Yeah provably not but would be nice....
 
Another well-connected source told BBC Sport they believed Ashworth had been blamed for the decision to keep former manager Erik ten Hag in the summer.

The Dutchman's position was under review and United spoke to potential replacements before he was given a one-year extension.

Having retained Ten Hag, £200m was then spent on new players, none of which can yet be regarded as a success. The huge outlay - combined with Profit and Sustainability (PSR) regulations that limit clubs' losses, and which United have only narrowly avoided having posted a loss of £370m over the Past five years - has also meant that the club cannot simply buy its way out of trouble.

Publicly, United are not giving the precise reasons for how they have ended up in this embarrassing mess. But they do not really need to.

Multiple sources have told BBC Sport that Ratcliffe's view in the summer was that Ten Hag should go, with a replacement brought in that could work with an evolving squad during the summer.
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Daengophile said:
To call Ashworth into a meeting in the evening, after the match when he's with his family tells me that there was something more serious than a liking for Southgate and a dislike of the coach's preferred formation.
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I think its an amalgamation of everything.

His day to day demeanor might not have been to everyones liking...maybe too negative and not as solutions based as woud have been liked.
His ideas were seemingly terrible.
I get the sense that he wasn't as active as they would have liked and wasn't as much of a team player the club needs.
When you then add these with the costs of keeping Ten Hag, the lack of data the Ratcliffe aluded to and throwing this season away which would not have been the plan, the ROI has been terrible.

My gut feeling is that they noticed that we also didn't need him, so I'm guessing there could be a slight structural change, with Wilcox getting the position. Part of the clubs new efficiency ethos. Might be cynical, but in the long run, might make decisions a lot quicker.

Additionally, with a scapegoat, INEOS can have a truly clean slate. This is why i never agreed with keeping ETH in the first place. Having the ego to think that coming into the club would allow a poor manager succeed was just arrogant. It failed, and it cost us a UCL position next season and has continued to hurt our reputation.
 
I believe a lot of news on Twitter is just bollocks to get engagement and clicks with little basis in reality, especially the parts about Transfers and keeping ETH/wanting Southgate.

First of all, I think we can all agree that we did very well this summer, comparing to what went on before. Most of the vibes and feedback was largely positive.
  • We managed to shift on Greenwood, McTom and even unwanted deadwood like Sancho.
  • We gazumped Real Madrid to Yoro who is regarded as a generational talent
  • We stood our ground and refused to be rinsed by Everton for Braithwaite
  • Maz is considered our standout player this season. Ugarte and Yoro looks promising. Jury is still out for MDL and Zz, and I think once they find their footing they would be considered good squad players in retrospect.
  • I do not think there is any basis to believe that he is unable to recruit players for a 3-4-3 system. It's not like he checked out his touted list and database, and told people that "feck my system isn't calibrated to find wing backs I'm not ever going to do this". I think this is simply nonsensical specualtion.
On the part of keeping ETH, I think most people forgot that after the FA Cup victory majority of the fans, including many here, were heavily in favour of keeping ETH, believe this to be his Sir Alex's 89/90 moment. I personally still have my vote as wanting ETH out, but we can't count against Ashworth because he has access to more info and data and we do.

Southgate wise I firmly believe this is rubbish, just something that the media cooked up based on their good personal relationship and Ashworth having a good working relation with Southgate in the past for England, but there has never been any confirmation that Southgate was ever seriously considered for the role.

I believe a simpler explanation is also the most boring one - there is a disagreement over the exact R&R of the Director of Football, and the future direction of the team.
  • When Ashworth was first hired, he was being talked about as one of the key person working with the manager to decide on the North Star for the club going forward, in terms of the style of football and acquiring players for this style so that the club can survive managerial changes without making massive swings in recruitment and accumulating deadwood like we did with our previous few managers
  • When Berrada was hired, he brought in Wilcox who is also talked about as someone to define the style, which seems to have some role overlap with Ashworth
  • It should be noted that Berrada was personally responsible for bringing in Amorim and flew to Portugal to convince him to join up with the club.
  • Berrada and Wilcox, of course, are part of the "Man City" clique that wanted Amorim, which Ashworth isn't part of
  • Amorim is insistent on playing his much vaunted 3-4-3 which made Sporting a force to be reckon with.
  • This however also means that we are going back to what we did with previous managerial appointments, because we suddenly now have a bunch of players who would be a poor fit for what Amorim wants to play meaning we end up with a bunch of deadwood that we need to shift, while needing to acquire new players who would fit.
  • In the worst case scenario - should Amorim not succeed, we will again go back to square one having acquired players for Amorim's system but might not fit whoever the new manager is.
  • This is also exactly going in the opposite direction of why we appointed Ashworth in the first place.
I suspect this is the point where there was a clash of opinions and both sides felt that there wasn't a fit and decided to part ways.
 
Adz_99 said:
One positive out of this whole fiasco, maybe it puts a rocket up the arse of some of the players.

"Look we got rid of a guy we really wanted after 5 months, we'll get rid of you too".

Yeah provably not but would be nice....
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Would be great if they could be as decisive on players as they were with ashworth. Obviously player contracts are more complicated but it would be nice waking up to news that the club have fecked rashford and Antony off.
 
Daengophile said:
To call Ashworth into a meeting in the evening, after the match when he's with his family tells me that there was something more serious than a liking for Southgate and a dislike of the coach's preferred formation.
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Agreed. This doesn't feel like a footballing issue. If it was just that he's not keen on Amorim they'd have sidelined him until the summer and then moved him on.
 
Am I the only one who thinks that someone taking the fall for keeping on a dud who was actively hurting the club is a good thing?

I know we love drama but we should also enjoy a little bit of ruthlessness and ambition.

If he is gone because he championed Ten Hag and supported his cause in the summer and yesterday further highlighted just how bad a decision that was, it’s a good thing, right?

One of the biggest problems of the last decade was that no one was responsible for anything and incompetence festered at all levels of the club.

I am hoping that they will be just as ruthless with the playing staff and we will finally see some consequences and ambition.
 
Maluco said:
Am I the only one who thinks that someone taking the fall for keeping on a dud who was actively hurting the club is a good thing?

I know we love drama but we should also enjoy a little bit of ruthlessness and ambition.

If he is gone because he championed Ten Hag and supported his cause in the summer and yesterday further highlighted just how bad a decision that was, it’s a good thing, right?

One of the biggest problems of the last decade was that no one was responsible for anything and incompetence festered at all levels of the club.

I am hoping that they will be just as ruthless with the playing staff and we will finally see some consequences and ambition.
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No, it’s good that someone is being held accountable for essentially costing the club an entire season.

The problem is who holds the people accountable that hired this ‘best in class’ option in the first place.
 
Simon Stone saying he’s shouldered blame for Ten Hag staying. I can see why they chopped him - as it was a horrible decision that set the tone for this season.

I’m saying this unabashedly as Ten Hag’s #1 hater, and no, I will not move on.

Seriously though, the optics on this are awful. He’s seemingly being “blamed” for Zirkzee, as well.
 
Adz_99 said:
One positive out of this whole fiasco, maybe it puts a rocket up the arse of some of the players.

"Look we got rid of a guy we really wanted after 5 months, we'll get rid of you too".

Yeah provably not but would be nice....
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They don't care.
 
#07 said:
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If true (and that's a big if), we're right back to the manager as the "single point of failure" at the club - the model that's been catastrophic for us over the past decade.
 
Raoul said:
If allowing ETH to stay after the FA Cup is the reason then it looks to be justified. Although I doubt its the only reason.
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That decision cost club (Jim) 25 millions just to replace him. Not to mention long term hit (not getting CL spot this year) which can cost us close to 100 mil in rewards and sponsorship money.

When your wrong decision cost your company 100 mil then it is perfectly normal to get a sack. Business is ruthless.
 
Woodzy said:
No, it’s good that someone is being held accountable for essentially costing the club an entire season.

The problem is who holds the people accountable that hired this ‘best in class’ option in the first place.
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They paid a highly rated expert and listened to his feedback. That was his job, and he ended up costing the club money, time and resources.

It would be far worse if

a) no one answered for it at all
b) they continued to act on his advice given how poor his initial call was.

I think it could be a good thing that there has been such an extreme reaction. It, at the very least, shows a desire to not be in these positions ever again.
 
Andycoleno9 said:
That decision cost club (Jim) 25 millions just to replace him. Not to mention long term hit (not getting CL spot this year) which can cost us close to 100 mil in rewards and sponsorship money.

When your wrong decision cost your company 100 mil then it is perfectly normal to get a sack. Business is ruthless.
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Ashworth wasn't even part of the club when that decision was taken, right?
 
hobbers said:
Hilarious and totally predictable that Ineos are now sending in the back channel quotes to Simon Stone trying to pin Ten Hag's stay of execution on Ashworth, even though he wasn't involved in the decision or even employed by us at the time.

Brailsford and Blanc are Ineos Sport. They are the ones who did the bullshit 2 week review at the end of the season. They're the ones who flew out to meet ETH while he was on holiday, suck up to him and offer him a new contract. Brailsford is also mates with Ashworth and probably the biggest reason we hired him.

These guys are habitual failures and that is why Ineos Sport fail at everything they do, and as long as they're involved in running United so will we. We need the cycling guru forced out and leave the football decisions to Berrada and Wilcox.
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Yeah up to now, the consensus based on all we had heard was that Brailsford and/or Blanc were the ones who pushed hard to keep ETH in the summer. So it's not surprising that now they're distancing themselves from that and blaming Ashworth instead.
 
Maluco said:
Am I the only one who thinks that someone taking the fall for keeping on a dud who was actively hurting the club is a good thing?

I know we love drama but we should also enjoy a little bit of ruthlessness and ambition.

If he is gone because he championed Ten Hag and supported his cause in the summer and yesterday further highlighted just how bad a decision that was, it’s a good thing, right?

One of the biggest problems of the last decade was that no one was responsible for anything and incompetence festered at all levels of the club.

I am hoping that they will be just as ruthless with the playing staff and we will finally see some consequences and ambition.
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But the ones responsible have not taken the fall. I quote from an Ornstein article from June:
But at the end of a process led by United co-owner Sir Jim Ratcliffe and INEOS sporting director Sir Dave Brailsford, the choice was made to move forward with Ten Hag.
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https://archive.ph/JesQU#selection-739.0-739.167

Ten Hag also recounted how "INEOS" visited him on holiday where the decision to continue was agreed upon. Ashworth was not in the job by then.

I think the real reason Ashworth was fired by Ratcliffe has been appearing between the lines in the last hours, and it is a disagreement about cuts INEOS want to make to the football department.
I also think that we are run by a horrible, horrible cnut.
 
I think that the ETH thing is BS. As SJR said himself when ETH was under fire ie these guys had just joined the club 5 weeks before and shouldn't have been blamed. The same can be said about transfers. A proper transfer strategy take months to shape so neither Berrada nor Ashworth would have had much say on what happened during the summer. Its pretty evident that last transfer window was done the 'old fashioned way' ie with the manager pretty much writing the Eredivisie players he wanted.

In my humble opinion its down to Ashworth clashing with Berrada. The CEO should be the one calling up the major shots yet somehow the club stripped the CEO from the biggest decision he should have taken himself ie appointing the Sporting director. That's quite big.
 
Ducker says he failed to gel with Berrada and Wilcox. Sounds like Berrada is firmly in charge now and has the trust of INEOS. Wilcox is his guy. Wouldn't be surprised if we just make him sporting director with Vivell supporting him. If we do end appointing a new sporting director, it's likely going to be somebody with clear links to Berrada/Wilcox. Maybe another ex City employee?

https://archive.ph/RuEAj

 
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So we spend all that money and go through all the furore with Newcastle just to fire him less than 6 months in? I do not see how this is a good thing in any way.
 
FortunaUtd said:
But the ones responsible have not taken the fall. I quote from an Ornstein article from June:

https://archive.ph/JesQU#selection-739.0-739.167

Ten Hag also recounted how "INEOS" visited him on holiday where the decision to continue was agreed upon. Ashworth was not in the job by then.
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I think it would be naive to think Ashworth wasn't involved in the process - even if he wasn't "officially" in the job yet.
 
Andycoleno9 said:
That decision cost club (Jim) 25 millions just to replace him. Not to mention long term hit (not getting CL spot this year) which can cost us close to 100 mil in rewards and sponsorship money.

When your wrong decision cost your company 100 mil then it is perfectly normal to get a sack. Business is ruthless.
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That would be justified, especially given the effort made trying to lure Tuchel in; failing to do so and then having to find ETH in Ibiza to convince him to sign a new contract and buy him new players, only then having to sack him and pay him out. Questions would be asked if most executives who were responsible for anything like this.
 
Objectively speaking—leaving aside all the unverified rumors about him pushing for Southgate or being against Amorim—the summer recruitment was pretty underwhelming.

Now, sure, sacking him after just five months does make the club look bad, especially after we spent ages negotiating with Newcastle to get him. Yeah, we could’ve planned this whole thing better, and yes, we kind of look like a circus right now. But honestly? If it wasn’t working, I’d rather rip the band-aid off and make a bold move now than drag out a messy situation.

Bottom line - I kinda like the ruthlessness
 
Big Ben Foster said:
If true (and that's a big if), we're right back to the manager as the "single point of failure" at the club - the model that's been catastrophic for us over the past decade.
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Well that's a leap.

Berarda made the decision to hire Amorim and is in charge of hiring below him. Ashworth works for Berarda so if he says Dan we are going in this direction and this manager is the one to do it then you either do it or you lose your job.
 
They're saying this guy wanted Southgate.



"One of Satan's greatest soldiers"
 
TsuWave said:
I think it would be naive to think Ashworth wasn't involved in the process - even if he wasn't "officially" in the job yet.
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No doubt, but it is also immensely dishonest to pretend he is the one solely responsible for Ten Hag continuing (and the many millions it cost us) when actual INEOS executives were in the job at the time making the actual decision.
 
FortunaUtd said:
But the ones responsible have not taken the fall. I quote from an Ornstein article from June:

https://archive.ph/JesQU#selection-739.0-739.167

Ten Hag also recounted how "INEOS" visited him on holiday where the decision to continue was agreed upon. Ashworth was not in the job by then.

I think the real reason Ashworth was fired by Ratcliffe has been appearing between the lines in the last hours, and it is a disagreement about cuts INEOS want to make to the football department.
I also think that we are run by a horrible, horrible cnut.
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Wether or not you think Ashworth was or wasn't involved in decisions before the 1st July, it's been much reported Ashworth was in support of keeping Ten Hag on before the sacking.
 
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