MANCHESTER, ENGLAND - NOVEMBER 03: Sir Jim Ratcliffe arrives ahead of the Premier League match between Manchester United FC and Chelsea FC at Old Trafford on November 03, 2024 in Manchester, England. (Photo by Ash Donelon/Manchester United via Getty Images)
Sir Jim Ratcliffe is facing fresh scrutiny after sacking Dan Ashworth
Dan Ashworth spent almost as long on gardening leave, waiting to be appointed Manchester United's sporting director, as he did in the role itself.
That alone underlines the sense of chaos and muddled thinking at United under co-owner Sir Jim Ratcliffe, with Ashworth having left his position after just five months. Ratcliffe hailed Ashworth as "one of the top sporting directors in the world", with United paying Newcastle around £3million to secure his services back in the summer.
The 53-year-old was appointed to oversee football performance and recruitment, the latter an area in which United have been inept in the past decade, with £1billion wasted on players who were simply not good enough.
Ashworth played a key role in United's £200m summer outlay on Leny Yoro, Manuel Ugarte, Matthijs De Ligt, Noussair Mazraoui and Joshua Zirkzee. Of those five, only Mazraoui can be considered an outright success thus far.
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Now Ashworth has departed, ostensibly by mutual consent, but clearly because the United hierarchy no longer had faith in him to carry out the role. With the pantomime season upon us, Ashworth's departure is timely, with a sense of farce and slapstick hanging over Ratcliffe's United regime.
Ratcliffe and his football executive team interviewed potential successors to Erik ten Hag in the summer, then decided to stick with him and trigger his one-year contract extension. They brought in a new coaching team to work with Ten Hag, only to sack him - and them - two-and-a-half months into the new season, at a cost of £10.4m.
Add that to the cost of recruiting Ashworth and that is £13.4million wasted by Ratcliffe and his cronies, who sacked 250 United staff as part of a major cost-cutting exercise. As the saying goes – same circus, different clowns.
Ashworth was removed from his position as Manchester United's sporting director on Saturday ( Image: PA)
Ratcliffe recently gave an interview to a United fanzine in which he called the club “mediocre” in the way it was run in the 11 years since Sir Alex Ferguson stepped down.
Given the ham-fisted way in which he and his executives have conducted themselves since taking over at the club, the same charge of mediocrity can be levelled at them.
Ashworth was United's first sporting director, but given how short-lived his role was, legitimate questions can be asked about Ratcliffe's judgment and that of his coterie, including his right-hand man Sir Dave Brailsford.
That they quickly lost faith in Ashworth suggests they may not possess the expertise to lead United out of their current malaise and back to the glory days enjoyed during the unprecedented era of success under Ferguson.
In another high-profile gaffe, Ratcliffe tried to defend the indefensible, justifying United's decision to hike the lowest match-day ticket price from £25 to £66, with no concessions for children or pensioners.
There have been so many missteps from the Ratcliffe regime, in less than a year in charge, that United fans are entitled to question whether the 72-year-old billionaire businessman is the right person to be in control of the destiny of their club. Ashworth's brief tenure would appear to endorse that view.
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