Sir Jim Ratcliffe has revealed that Dan Ashworth left Manchester United because the 'chemistry' was not right.
Sir Jim went to great lengths to tempt Ashworth to Old Trafford having described the former [Newcastle United](https://www.chroniclelive.co.uk/all-about/newcastle-united-fc) sporting director as 'one of the best' in the world little more than a year ago. The Manchester United co-owner even hit out at Newcastle's 'silly' demands to cut short [Ashworth's](https://www.chroniclelive.co.uk/all-about/dan-ashworth) lengthy notice period and suggested the Magpies were being 'very difficult'.
A settlement was finally reached last summer, but Ashworth ended up spending as much time on gardening leave as the 54-year-old did formally working at Old Trafford following his shock departure in December. Now Sir Jim has spoken about the decision to part for the first time in an interview with Gary Neville on the Overlap.
"You may know Dan better than I do," he began. "I'm sure, in fact, you do. I don't want to go into the details of it because I don't think it serves much purpose. At the end of the day, it was chemistry. Maybe a bit more than chemistry, but let's just say chemistry and it didn't work. Just chemistry.
"I know it's an unpopular decision and it's seen as an error, and it was an error, but slightly in our defence, we did recognise it as something that would not work and therefore we decided we would make a change. What would have been far easier because of the scrutiny that we knew we would get in the media would have been to live with it, but I wasn't prepared to live with it."
Ashworth was the senior figure quoted when Manchester United extended former manager Erik ten Hag's contract and when the club committed to spending more than £205m - if various add-ons are met - on Joshua Zirkzee, Leny Yoro, Matthijs de Ligt, Noussair Mazraoui and Manuel Ugarte. Manchester United currently lie in 14th place in the table.