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

Should never have been hired but I respect the ruthlessness in sacking him after a few months. Wanting to hire Southgate over Amorim looks beyond incompetent.
 
Tom Van Persie said:
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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He also says Ashworth had the closest relationship with ten Hag while Berrada/Wilcox felt a change was needed. Some reports that came out at the time of ten Hag's sacking were that ten Hag did not get on with Wilcox.

The more you read into this story the more it becomes obvious why we had to part ways. This partnership was never going to work and we're better off cutting our losses now than to prolong the inevitable.
 
FortunaUtd said:
This is getting sillier by the minute.
So Ashworth apparently can't work on squad building with a coach playing a 3-4-3, yet also he was this huge proponent of hiring Southgate, who played a 3-4-3/3-5-2 in the majority of his England tenure?
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Pretty sure Brighton have played a three at the back system while he was there too. Maybe he didn't want Amorim but I'm not buying this, he wasn't a fan of a 3 at the back system as being a major reason.
 
saivet said:
Pretty sure Brighton have played a three at the back system while he was there too. Maybe he didn't want Amorim but I'm not buying this, he wasn't a fan of a 3 at the back system as being a major reason.
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Shaw played LWB and Maguire in a back three when England lost the final to Italy, if memory serves me right
 
Stinkypete said:
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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I would be interested in a couple of examples of that reporting (honestly, not meant in snide),
 
If true (and probably isn't) and he doesn't like the 3-4-3 crap, I have some sympathy for the man. Signing Zirkzee and De Ligt and keeping ETH makes it very difficult though. Time will tell if INEOS clowns or him were "right".
 
Tom Van Persie said:
He also says Ashworth had the closest relationship with ten Hag while Berrada/Wilcox felt a change was needed. Some reports that came out at the time of ten Hag's sacking were that ten Hag did not get on with Wilcox.

The more you read into this story the more it becomes obvious why we had to part ways. This partnership was never going to work and we're better off cutting our losses now than to prolong the inevitable.
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Yeah whoever the people in between Berrada and Amorim are, they all have to have the same vision and be fully in line with each other. Amorim is the most important guy at the club right now, the head coach/manager always is regardless of structure or modern changes, they still are the most important. So if Ashworth had a different view of how things should go, then it made no sense keeping him.
 
devilish said:
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.
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I agree that a power struggle is the most likely explanation, maybe all coming to a head over appointing Amorim. Ashworth has possibly found himself in a similar situation to what happened a Newcastle where he wasn’t happy with the scope of his role and this was the inevitable result.

The club was completely devoid of competence at senior level and all these people have been put together over a short period of time with egos and ideas and it may have just not worked out. If this kind of thing keeps happening it will be a huge concern but hopefully there will be more stability going forward.
 
Shocked. Not shocked. More scapegoat, meat shield, distractions that paper over the profound decay and malfeasance that we've failed to arrest or repair.
 
A lot of this stuff doesn't add up that tries to bring Ashworth down right now. Didn't he really want de Ligt at Newcastle? Would be weird if he was the only one in the whole structure not onboard with that signing now, considering that.

He also left Newcastle, as far as I'm aware, because he felt like Howe had way too much power at that club and his own role was not as important as he would've liked it to be, as a result...so the notion that he wanted to replace ETH with Howe has to be bullshit IMO.
 
From the telegraph it’s basically that Berrada, Wilcox and Ashworth didn’t quite gel as expected and instead of letting it limp on they made a decision. Really just not a huge issue. Sometimes you think you’re bringing in the best in class, interviews go well, but in post it doesn’t work out. People don’t need to get overly worked up about this.

https://www.reddit.com/r/reddevils/s/lAy4vDvPzY
 
Stinkypete said:
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.
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These are things that should have been discussed prior to hiring Ashworth though, questions like, “What sort of future manager would you like to see for United?” should have been asked. And then they should have made sure it was in line with Berrada and others.
 
Woodzy said:
The rumours were too strong for at least one person at the club not to be pushing for Southgate, and odds are it would have been Asworth.
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There's no guarantee they ever had any substance beyond him and Ashworth being pals and working together at the FA.

The same things were regurgitated again regularly, doesn't necessarily mean there was more to it than the superficial link.
 
For a moment, Ineos, you had me thinking you knew what you were doing. Well done. Whether it’s through the initial appointment, or now, something went horribly wrong. The Director of Football should be fundamental to the long term strategic football vision and stability of the club.
 
FreakyJim said:
If true (and probably isn't) and he doesn't like the 3-4-3 crap, I have some sympathy for the man. Signing Zirkzee and De Ligt and keeping ETH makes it very difficult though. Time will tell if INEOS clowns or him were "right".
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The decision to keep ten hag last summer wad made by ineos before ashworth was on board. Seems like some of the signings were too.

Ineos will now look to blame all failings on ashworth but just defaulting to wilcox doing the role gives me murtough vibes e.g. someone promoted into the role because they get on woth the execs rather than any sort of best in class set up
 
I am expecting news to come soon of substantial "restructuring" i.e. layoffs and cutbacks in the recruitment/footballing/scouting department.
 
devilish said:
I gave 0 chance of us landing Berrada or us signing Yoro but here we are.

All I can say is that Berrada is part of the Barcelona contingent that moved en masse to City. The Daily mail counted 15 people between senior staff, doctors, fitness people, manager, coaches and players and that excluding Berrada. What does Berrada do the moment he gets the job? We hired Wilcox ie a former Manchester City guy + we go for Sporting Lisbon manager at a time when City were targeting him and Sporting Lisbon's sporting director. This guys do love to work with a small circle of like minded people who share their own vision
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Begiristain is 60 years old and has built a legacy now at a big (not really) club. He's the first person everyone will think of when talking about the "structure" at City. He's also retiring, which he has been planning to do since 2019. I doubt he would want to take on any long-term project right now, especially for his legacy club's biggest rivals, and especially in a lesser role than he was working in at City.

In comparison, Berrada is just 45, and was never the main guy at City like he is now at United, the time for him to make his mark in the game is now. I doubt he would even consider brining Begiristain to United, even if the latter was willing to come, which I seriously doubt.
 
bosnian_red said:
Yeah whoever the people in between Berrada and Amorim are, they all have to have the same vision and be fully in line with each other. Amorim is the most important guy at the club right now, the head coach/manager always is regardless of structure or modern changes, they still are the most important. So if Ashworth had a different view of how things should go, then it made no sense keeping him.
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I was never convinced ashworth was all he was hyped up to be but this is a little concerning because it should have been the role of the dof to appoint the manager. Whereas it sounds like berrada is making the football decisions and might just appoint people who agree woth him. Berrada may have more knowledge of football than Ed but he is he qualified to make decisions on the football side of things?
 
tjb said:
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.
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I'm still not sold that this wasn't something that could have been done at a formal meeting on Monday. There seems to be an element of anger
 
I've said it before and I'll say it again, I think football has really gone down a rabbit hole with all these various roles within clubs, overcomplicating what was and still should be a simple job. It's delegating stuff that typically the manager and his staff dealt with, but deciding that they need to create all these multiple new roles, which sounds more professional, but ultimately it's to try and micromanage every aspect of the club.

However Utd have tried a few people in this role already and I struggle to see how it's worked or helped, and if it did, how do you measure the success? Ashworth was supposed to be the jewel in the crown in this role and has left before he's barely begun the job. It's just not possible with all these staff all with similar roles agreeing to everything. To me it's just asking for trouble and once results go bad, so they will all start blaming each other.
 
Matt851 said:
I was never convinced ashworth was all he was hyped up to be but this is a little concerning because it should have been the role of the dof to appoint the manager. Whereas it sounds like berrada is making the football decisions and might just appoint people who agree woth him. Berrada may have more knowledge of football than Ed but he is he qualified to make decisions on the football side of things?
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The director of football is never really the person who hires the manager. They should lead the recruitment. The manager is the head of coaching the team and the head of the players. The Director of Football should be the head of recruiting players. Technical director I always thought focuses more on bringing in the non player staff side of things. They all report to Berrada as the head. However their structure works it would be ultimately Berrada who hires the manager, not Ashworth who was not above the pecking order.
 
LordSpud said:
I would be interested to see what SJR's biggest fan @Plant0x84 has to say about all this bullshit
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Always same shit here. First, hard to form an opinion when you have zero clue what actually went behind closed doors. But I don't know why everything has to be black and white. Some wanted different owners and now will jump at any opurtunity to slam new ones. Ineos made some good decisions and some bad ones. We have been much more efficent in transfer market, there are no leeks and we closed the deal with Amorim (the best candidate out of the ones we could get).. they fecked up Ten Hag contract, they are cutting costs with shit decision about rasing ticket costs. But no, you were not so keen (am guessing on Ineos) and everything is bad.

However we continue I trust Ineos more than Glazers. And that is with added issue of not having so much money to spend like Glazers.
 
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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Definitely sounds like there’s more to the story.
 
You know there are positives as well as negatives to everything....
 


Sounds like Ratcliffe will be taking much more of an involved role than he led us to believe previously....
 
It's hard to know where to even begin with this.

I think what baffles me the most is the idea that Ashworth disagreeing or not aligning with the other execs on the most pivotal decisions that the club had to make in recent months is somehow an acceptable excuse for this happening.

How is it possible that the club could pursue Ashworth for most of a year, put up with him having to go on gardening leave and paying Newcastle compensation to aqcuire his services, only to then realise that he has fundamentally different opinions on i) how long we should stick with Ten Hag ii) what our recruitment strategy would look like iii) who a possible next manager might be and iv) what our playing style should be going forward?

What did the likes of Ratcliffe and Berrada discuss with Ashworth during the recruitment process if not these things?

I'm not buying that the above excuse is a reflection of what has really happened. I have to think that something else has gone on, who knows what that may be.

And that leads me onto another point, which is that I think the statement released by the club is appalling and tone deaf. We as a fanbase have been deprived of transparency for decades, and for something as significant as this to happen so abruptly to be met with a two-sentence press release is unacceptable.

There's no angle that you can look at this from where it is not deeply concerning on multiple levels.
 
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fergosaurus said:
Should never have been hired but I respect the ruthlessness in sacking him after a few months. Wanting to hire Southgate over Amorim looks beyond incompetent.
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Agreed. I mean, if it's not working better to part-ways as soon as, rather than prodding along not working just for the sake of it
 
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