Ashworth left West Brom to join the FA in 2013
Ashworth left West Brom to join the FA in 2013
Former West Brom technical director Dan Ashworth has left Manchester United this weekend, after only five months at Old Trafford. The club confirmed Ashworth's departure in the wake of the Red Devils' defeat on home soil to Nottingham Forest on Saturday evening.
Ashworth spent almost as much time on gardening leave waiting to take the reins at United as he did actually in situ, after departing Newcastle United last season. In turn, he'd been prised away from Brighton and Hove Albion to make the move to Tyneside in 2022, after three years on the south coast.
Prior to that, Ashworth had been in the FA set-up for the previous six years, being lured away from Albion in 2013 having helped to guide them in his directorial capacity from the Championship and into the top half of the Premier League, during which time they established themselves as a top flight outfit for eight years.
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Ashworth's reputation at The Hawthorns continued to grow over time before he left for the FA. There were numerous success stories, certainly in terms of recruitment and on-field performance, overseen by Ashworth, who developed fruitful working relationships with others behind the scenes at the club - none perhaps more so than Richard Garlick.
At Albion, Ashworth and Garlick were responsible for negotiating transfers and leading managerial appointment processes, the latter working initially as a club secretary and then a legal director before becoming the club's director of football administration. Garlick left in 2018, having eventually replaced Ashworth's role, to become the director of football at the Premier League.
It was announced in 2021 that he'd be leaving his role in the organisation to take up the director of football operations job at Arsenal and, earlier this year, he was promoted to managing director at the Emirates Stadium. Arsenal are on the look-out for a new sporting director, too, after Edu confirmed he'd be leaving to take up a role working under Evangelos Marinakis, who owns Nottingham Forest and Olympiakos among other clubs.
The Sun now report that Garlick and Ashworth could be reunited, with the latter identified as a possible replacement for Edu, an unforeseen candidate who has surprisingly and swiftly become available following his premature and abrupt departure from United.
Who was the best signing of the Ashworth era at Albion? Tell us HERE