Having secured the services of Paul Mitchell, the Newcastle hierarchy will feel they have got themselves a more suitable upgrade
What does it say about a bigger picture guy that he can’t see what’s right in front of him?
Dan Ashworth’s Manchester United departure was a shock but not exactly unexpected to anyone who knew how Ineos’s key men work.
Out to dinner a couple of years ago, someone who has been around Sir Dave Brailsford a great deal took a fork of pasta and said Ineos’s director of sport was the kind of person who would be “in the kitchen telling the chef the right temperature to boil this at and how much salt to add”.
Not exactly the sort of person to leave Ashworth – who is fond of pulling up a diagram of a wheel and proclaiming football club departments to have seven “spokes” which he’s in the centre of – well alone then.
It is staggering that Manchester United did not seem to seek references from people who have worked with Ashworth before trying to prise him from Newcastle United’s clutches.
Newcastle insiders generally spoke highly of him, his attention to detail and the work on culture at the club.
He is good but if you are trying to be disruptors he is probably not your guy, which is why – inadvertently – forcing his exit from St James’ Park has done the club a favour in the long run.
Newcastle weren’t looking to replace him but the new guy on Tyneside – Paul Mitchell – is probably the shock therapy the club needs.
Few saw it that way when Mitchell raced headlong into controversy with his September interview that focused on the narrative that the club’s recruitment was not fit for purpose and change was needed.
Back then there was talk of civil war and fretting about Eddie Howe’s future as Mitchell was portrayed as unnecessarily confrontational.
But now, with the club 12th and clearly in need of a new direction and more dynamism in player trading, Mitchell’s words look a lot more astute.
As I wrote at the time, it is time to take risks at Newcastle or risk stagnating.
That they have held off on big decisions on sales for so long – and not expanded their recruitment horizons enough – speaks volumes about Ashworth’s deficiencies.
It seems strange that Sir Jim Ratcliffe didn’t do more due diligence on Ashworth’s qualities before targeting him in the first place but entirely consistent with his muddle-headed approach at Manchester United.
From day one he has spoken like the smartest man in the room when in fact, he and Brailsford are Premier League novices playing catch up.
That they paid Newcastle somewhere between £3m and £5m for Ashworth – amounts vary depending on who you speak to – and then parted company within five months makes a mockery of Mancunian accusations from July that they’d run rings round the Magpies.
In actual fact, Newcastle played a blinder – and have ended up with a more suitable director of football for the uncertainty they face.
For his part Ashworth is now reportedly in the running for the Arsenal director of football job as the executive merry-go-round continues.
As one source pointed out, it is actually a role that he would be better suited for given that club needs tweaks rather than an Old Trafford style overhaul.
The bigger picture here is that directors of football are no longer always seen as the suits in the background who are insulated against results, form and failure in the name of long-term strategy and success. They are often the headline act in football’s continuing soap opera.