Manchester United icon Gary Neville.
Gary Neville has called for an explanation from Manchester United following Dan Ashworth's shock exit.
Manchester United icon Gary Neville has expressed his shock at Dan Ashworth's exit as sporting director.
The former defender believes the 41-word statement from the club was "really poor" and speculated over whether something has happened behind the scenes. It had emerged on Sunday that the 53-year-old has left the club by mutual consent following discussions with CEO Omar Berrada in light of their 3-2 defeat to Nottingham Forest.
Ashworth oversaw £200million worth of business enter the fray at the Theatre of Dreams as he was headhunted and tasked with steering United back on course to becoming English and European juggernauts once again. However, after a mere five months, his tenure at Old Trafford has come to an abrupt end.
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Speaking on NBC Sports, Neville expressed his shock and called for the club to explain the decision. He said: "Something like that can't be mutual. We all knew when INEOS came in, there would be huge changes, there has been - massive redundancies in the club, a complete overhaul of the executive in the club, CEO, CFO, sporting director, technical director, manager just recently as well.
"You would have expected large changes but not for this position. Dan Ashworth was headhunted for many, many months, he was chased for about 10 months, he was on gardening leave for four or five minutes, he was paid millions of pounds for, I worked with Dan Ashworth at the FA and he's been successful wherever he has gone.
"I'm really shocked this morning that this has happened this morning and it's going to need a lot of explaining. The statement that the club has put out is really poor.
"Manchester United haven't had a voice for 10 years," he added. "They lost their authority, their boldness, I think they've been getting it back in the last 12 months but what is clear is that there's a fracture here, something has happened. You can't bring someone at the level of Dan Ashworth, lose him after five months and I think something hasn't gone wrong.
"Fans are going to be asking the question of what's gone wrong, they'll speculate, it'll leave huge voids and I think it's better to punch us in the face when it is so obvious that something has gone wrong between the personalities of Dan Ashworth, Omar Berrada, Sir Dave Brailsford.
"Whoever it is in the last few months that have not gone on with each other or it's not been working. Just tell us, it's obvious something has happened, I think that statement was weak."