Dan Ashworth greets Manchester United head coach Ruben Amorim at Carrington
Dan Ashworth greets Manchester United head coach Ruben Amorim at Carrington
Ruben Amorim has expressed his concerns over Dan Ashworth's sudden departure from Manchester United, calling it a 'bad situation'.
Despite the shock exit of Ashworth - who had served just over five months as the club's first sporting director - Amorim reflected on the strong backing he received since his appointment as head coach. He noted that Ashworth, who the Manchester Evening News understands had initially opposed Amorim's hiring in favour of Gareth Southgate, became a supporter once in post.
Amorim said: "The first thing I want to say since the first day, I felt great support from the ownership, from Omar (Berrada), from them also, from Jason (Wilcox), and Dan was part of that and I really, really, really [received] support from Dan also. But this is football and sometimes this happens, happens with players, with coaches, I know it's not the best situation but the important thing is we continue in our way.
"The path is really clear for everybody and I think this can happen in football. Of course, it's a bad situation.
"Like I said, we are talking about a human being, a professional, that supports us as a team but I think the most important thing is the vision is really clear and that don't change if one person leaves." Amorim was reluctant to elaborate on his club's specific vision but emphasized the ultimate goal was to make the club Premier League champions again. "No, I don't think so [that there were disagreements]," he concluded.
"I cannot tell you about the vision at just a press conference but we want to take this club to winning the Premier League and to be an elite club like this club should be. In this way, we have to make changes because of the context.
"I don't know, you could change the coach, because you don't have results you could change the coach. So you can have a vision but sometimes you make a slight change of direction to find the same goal, so this could happen in football, we are focused on winning the Premier League, that is the main goal."
Newcastle were embroiled in a lengthy compensation battle with Sir Jim Ratcliffe and Ineos after Ashworth made it clear that he wanted to leave for Old Trafford. He would last just five months in that job and is now thought to be on the radar of Arsenal who are searching for a replacement for Edu.
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