Dan Ashworth has cited the example of Eddie Howe as evidence of how it is ‘very rare’ for a manager to not be in place when a sporting director is appointed.
Howe, of course, was already several months into his reign as Newcastle United head coach when Ashworth eventually followed from Brighton in 2022. However, the pair ended up only working together for little more than a year-and-a-half after Ashworth was placed on gardening leave back in February ahead of taking up a new position at Manchester United.
It took the clubs some time to finally strike a deal to end Ashworth’s lengthy notice period given that this was a senior figure in a position of power who had ‘a lot of intelligence and information’ in the words of Howe. Newcastle had initially demanded up to £20m to allow Ashworth to start work at Manchester United, but a compromise was eventually reached and the sporting director was released from his contractual obligations back in July.
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Ashworth has now given his first interview to the media as Manchester United’s sporting director, which, unsurprisingly, did not touch on his departure from Newcastle given the confidential terms of the agreement between the two clubs. However, Ashworth did make one very brief reference to his time at St James’ Park after being asked if it was odd to inherit a coach in Erik ten Hag at Manchester United.
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“Well, it happened at Newcastle with Eddie Howe,” he told reporters. “It happened at West Brom – Tony Mowbray was in place. Very rarely do you go into a job as a sporting director and there’s no manager in place.”
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