Gary Neville rips the Manchester United hierarchy for the whole Dan Ashworth debacle, ridiculing the official statement released by the club.
The Red Devils shockingly announced the departure of the sporting director on Sunday, putting a premature end to his time at Carrington, just five months following his arrival.
Over the past 24 hours, there have been several speculations over the reasons that prompted the decision, aside from the club’s poor results of course.
It has been suggested that Sir Jim Ratcliffe and INEOS were expecting Ashworth to perform tasks he wasn’t too familiar with, including acting as a transfer market guru.
For his part, Neville was irked by the messy situation, defending the departing director who produced positive results in his past tenures.
“Something like that can’t be mutual. When INEOS came in, everyone knew there were going to be huge changes,” said the 49-year-old during his appearance on NBC Sports.
“There have been – mass redundancies within the club, a complete overhaul of the executive of the club in terms of the CEO, CFO, sporting director, technical director and now manager recently.
“You would’ve expected large changes, but not for this position. Ashworth was headhunted for many months, he was chased for about 10 months.
“He was on gardening leave for four or five months, they paid millions of pounds to get him.
“I worked with Dan at the FA for two years, and he’s been very successful everywhere he has been.
“Brighton, West Brom, the FA and Newcastle most recently. I’m most shocked this has happened, it’s not a great look at all. It’s something that’s going to need a lot of explaining.”
Gary Neville believes Man United have some explaining to do on the Dan Ashworth debacle
Neville was also irritated by the lack of clarity over the whole situation, mocking the brief statement released by the club.
“The statement the club have put out is really poor. Man Utd haven’t had a voice for 10 years. They’ve lost their authority and their boldness.
“They’ve been getting it back a little bit in the last 12 months, but it’s really clear there’s a fracture here.
“You can’t bring someone in like Dan Ashworth, lose him after five months and think something hasn’t gone wrong.
“Fans are going to be asking what’s gone wrong. They’re going to speculate, there’s going to be huge voids.
“You’re better off punching us in the face with the truth sometimes when it’s so obvious something has gone wrong, between the personalities of Dan Ashworth and Omar Barrada, Dave Brailsford, whoever it is who hasn’t got on with each other.
“Just tell us, because it’s obvious something has happened. That statement is weak.”