Ineos made another key change after deciding to part ways with Dan Ashworth
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By OLIVER HOLT
Published: 21:00 EST, 8 December 2024 | Updated: 21:00 EST, 8 December 2024
Ruben Amorim, the new Manchester United manager, began to get an idea of the scale of the problems that face him on the pitch on Saturday afternoon when, against Nottingham Forest, his side fell to their second successive league defeat.
On Saturday evening, when Dan Ashworth, United’s once-coveted sporting director, was jettisoned by owner Sir Jim Ratcliffe, just five months after taking up his post, Amorim began to get an idea of the problems that face him off the pitch, too.
As Ashworth heads back to a lovingly tended garden where he spent so much ‘leave’ during the wrangle between United and Newcastle for his services, the Old Trafford club is, once more, looking like a model of dysfunction and Machiavellianism.
This kind of confusion, this lack of unity, this loss of purpose was supposed to have been consigned to the past when Ratcliffe and his Ineos group became minority shareholders and took over the running of the football operation at the club from the Glazer family.
The reality, though, is that things have got worse on the pitch and have probably got worse off it, too.
Approaching the mid-point of the season, United sit well below mid-table, their hopes of making the Champions League places appearing more and more forlorn by the day.
Ruben Amorim is facing his first difficulties at Man United after losing two successive Premier League fixtures
Sir Jim Ratcliffe (right) and his Ineos group became minority shareholders and took over the running of the football operation at Man United from the Glazer (left: Avram Glazer) family
On Saturday evening, Dan Ashworth (second right), United’s once-coveted sporting director, was jettisoned from his position after less than five months
Everyone knew it would take time for the club to overhaul its playing staff after the disastrous recruitment under Erik ten Hag and preceding him, too.
But the worry for United fans is that the grim politburo now running the club is not pulling in the same direction.
Ashworth was highly regarded when United poached him from Newcastle last season after good work with the FA and Brighton before his successful spell in the north east.
But when Ineos took over the football operation at United, I spoke to another highly respected director of football who said he thought whoever took the job at Old Trafford would be hampered by the presence of Sir Dave Brailsford above him.
Brailsford was supposed to be an ally of Ashworth but the fact that Sir Dave, who knows nothing of football, has been given such a prominent role in trying to revive the biggest club in the country does not bode well for its prospects of recovery. Once a man of marginal gains, he has become a champion of sizeable losses.
Struggling in Brailsford’s shadow, in part, appears to be the fate that befell Ashworth. There are so many chiefs in the hierarchy at the club now that there seems to be little clarity about who decides on recruitment and direction.
One symptom of that lack of clarity was the indecision that paralysed the club’s thinking over the future of Ten Hag at the end of last season.
Anyone who knew football knew that Ten Hag’s time was up and yet United allowed themselves to be persuaded to give the Dutchman a stay of execution because of one result, the FA Cup final win over Manchester City. Some say Sir Jim blamed Ashworth for that error.
Omar Berrada (pictured) was announced as Man United's new CEO as part of the Ineos-backed sporting team's long-term strategy
Ratcliffe is chairing United's sporting revolution with the help of long-term ally Sir Dave Brailsford (right)
Jason Wilcox (left) worked closely with Ashworth (right) after joining as United's technical director in the summer
United repented of that decision at their leisure but not before they had wasted another £200million of the club’s money on Ten Hag signings in the summer.
They then finally admitted their mistake, firing Ten Hag and replacing him with Amorim. Ineos were supposed to have cleared up the Glazers’ mess. They have just made the mess messier.
Amorim is clearly a decent bloke and an intelligent man who makes television interviewers feel good about themselves by looking them in the eye and taking time to speak to the sound engineer.
We have at least established that much since his arrival from Sporting Lisbon last month — but there is not much else for United supporters to be optimistic about yet.
Even Ratcliffe, in a revealing interview he gave to respected United fanzine United We Stand, railed against the mediocrity of the club he has inherited and the way it has been allowed to decay and decline.
‘Data analysis comes alongside recruitment,’ said Ratcliffe. ‘It doesn’t really exist here. We’re still in the last century on data analysis here. We are paying for all the players we’ve bought before we arrived. And they’re expensive.’
Ratcliffe is right about that. And he’s right about the way that United have been run.
Erik ten Hag (pictured) was previously kept on by the club's Ineos team after winning the FA Cup last season
For too long, they have existed in a bubble of complacency and entitlement. Bursting that bubble is chief among the tasks that faces Amorim as he begins the process of trying to put things right.
In the meantime, it is to be hoped that Ashworth finds enough to occupy him in his garden. He was supposed to be planting new bulbs at Old Trafford but that didn’t work out so well.