Former sports director of Manchester United Ashworth is leaving after five months

Manchester United announced on Sunday that Dan Ashworth has quit as sports director after five months on the job. Ashworth and the club agreed to part ways.

The 53-year-old was brought in from Newcastle United in July to a lot of excitement. However, Ashworth and Chief Executive Omar Berrada decided to part ways after Saturday’s 3-2 loss at home to Nottingham Forest, according to the Athletic.

“We would like to thank Dan for his work and support during a transitional period for the club and wish him well in the future,” United wrote in a statement.

According to Jim Ratcliffe, who bought a small stake in the club, Ashworth was very important in changing it. He made big choices like keeping manager Erik ten Hag and spending almost 200 million pounds ($255 million) on new players.

His shocking exit comes after United paid Newcastle about 10 million pounds to get him to leave Newcastle after long talks during which Ashworth was put on gardening leave.

Ratcliffe used to call Ashworth “one of the top sporting directors in the world,” but stories say that the INEOS boss was behind his firing. This comes less than a month after Ruben Amorim was hired as head coach.

Ashworth was a big part of the decision to give Ten Hag a one-year extension on his deal. Fans were happy about this at first, especially after United beat Manchester City to win the FA Cup final.

Ten Hag was fired on October 28, though, because the team was 14th in the Premier League and hadn’t won in Europe.

Ashworth was also in charge of United’s big summer signings, which included Matthijs de Ligt, Noussair Mazraoui, Manuel Ugarte, Leny Yoro, and Joshua Zirkzee.

None of them have consistently been great, and French defender Yoro just made his start last week after being hurt for a long time.

United lost to Forest at Old Trafford for the first time in more than 30 years. With 19 points, they are now 13th in the table, which is the fewest points they’ve had after 15 games since 1986.

United has only won one of Amorim’s four league games in charge since he was hired from Sporting Lisbon.

“We knew it would be hard,” Amorim said after the Forest loss. “It will be a long journey, but we want to win because this is a massive club.”

United will be away on Thursday to play Viktoria Plzen of the Czech Republic in the Europa League. On Sunday, they will be away to play Manchester City, who are the current winners.

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