He doesn’t score goals. He doesn’t create chances. You don’t see him on the bench or on the field. But in the last couple of weeks, he has filled British newspaper pages as if he were the new Erling Braut Haaland. Welcome … Dan Ashworth. Title: Sports director. More expensive than Ronaldo Ashworth is the most relevant signing in English football right now. Manchester United wants to bring Ashworth from Newcastle, but must pay NOK 130 million in compensation. If they want him before 2026, they will quickly have to pay twice as much, writes the British press. That’s an unusual amount for someone who doesn’t play football. Measured in pounds, it is actually half a million more than what Barcelona gave Inter when they broke the transfer record for Brazilian Ronaldo in 1997. WAS CHEAPER THAN ASHWORTH: If Manchester United sign Dan Ashworth already now, they will reportedly have to fork out 20 million pounds. Ronaldo (right) was bought by Inter for £19.5m. Photo: REUTERS Ashworth has gained such a high profile that a number of British media have written columns and profiles about him in the last couple of weeks. Martin Samuel, a commentator in the British newspaper The Times, believes that Newcastle should demand up to NOK 800 million for Ashworth, since he will both weaken them and strengthen a direct rival. Negotiations can wait. Without an agreement, Ashworth will be employed by Newcastle until 2026, but since he wants to join United, Newcastle have removed him from his role at the club. In an interview with the BBC last week, United’s new co-owner, Jim Ratcliffe, said that 260 million is a “silly” figure. But he added that it makes little sense for Ashworth to go long without work. And Ratcliffe is unlikely to wait long. For United, Ashworth can mean far more than a new star on the pitch. Limet Sports directors set a strategy for the club. If United have lacked anything in the last decade, it is a good strategy. At Newcastle, Ashworth is the link between nine departments: Men’s Football, Women’s Football, Recruitment, the Academy, and so on. Tony Mowbray, the coach he worked with at West Bromwich, recently told The Athletic website that Ashworth was the “glue” that held the club together. At United, Ashworth will get the whole club back on track. UNITED’S RESCUE MAN? Can Dan Ashworth be the man to get Manchester United back on track? Photo: Reuters In one way, he is a modern figure. Before, top teams were only about the players, the coach and the owner, but now directors have become an important link between owner and coach. The special thing about Ashworth is that he can change pastures for so much money. But all good teams have good managers. Especially United’s rivals. At Arsenal, Edu has built up the team together with Mikel Arteta. Manchester City got hold of Pep Guardiola because he was friends with Txiki Begiristain. At Liverpool, analytical guru Michael Edwards played an important role in the coups under Jürgen Klopp. Edwards left Anfield in 2022 and has become one of football’s most sought-after figures. Chelsea have chased him before and Liverpool miss him now. If you make a mistake with the sports director, there can be chaos. Without map and compass Chelsea’s owners, with Todd Boehly at the helm, know this in particular. When they took over Chelsea in 2022, they brought in both coaches and players before finding a sporting director. Boehly first took the job himself. Now Chelsea’s owners have brought in two other directors, Paul Winstanley and Laurence Stewart, but they have still spent more than one billion pounds – around NOK 13 billion at today’s rate – on a team that is in the middle of the table. United? They have not had a sporting director with authority at all. They should have found one as soon as manager Alex Ferguson and general manager David Gill resigned in 2013, and the penalty has been a decade of failure. Only now that the businessman Ratcliffe has become a co-owner, United are doing what everyone outside Old Trafford has been clamoring for for a long time: They are acquiring solid expertise in the link between coach and owners. THE LAST TIME UNITED HAD SUCCESS: David Gill (left) and Alex Ferguson in 2011, when they were general manager and manager of Manchester United. Photo: Afp United has two directors, John Murtough and Darren Fletcher, but neither of them has extensive experience in these roles. In 2022, the team’s interim coach, Ralf Rangnick, said the club needed “open heart surgery”. Everything we’ve seen afterwards suggests that Rangnick was right. Flops that cost Blar United up for Ashworth now, they can get him in place in the summer. Otherwise, they have to wait, which is hardly a good idea. A summer with several flops can cost far more than NOK 130 million. Although Ashworth does not recruit players himself, he does recruit those behind the recruitment. And United have struggled there. In the past two years alone, United have brought in winger Antony and midfielder Mason Mount, and paid to loan striker Sofyan Amrabat. Total price: NOK 1.8 billion. All three have lost their places on the team. Mount is injured, while Antony and Amrabat have been dropped by Alejandro Garnacho and Kobbie Mainoo, two teenagers who have hardly cost anything. DANGED OUT THE BIG BUYS: 18-year-old Kobbie Mainoo has received far more playing time than Mount, Antony and Amrabat in recent months. Photo: Reuters Such misses happen when recruitment does not work. It generally makes little sense for rich teams to save money on directors and coaches, while it is normal to spend half a billion on a striker who wears the bench. The sum of NOK 130 million, which United must spend to secure Ashworth right away, is only slightly more than what they paid to loan Amrabat this season. If they get Ashworth in now, he can quickly pay for himself. Recommended by Sir Alex Wherever Ashworth has worked, the teams have played well. Ashworth was behind the sporting strategy for England’s Football Association when the national team reached the semi-finals of the 2018 World Cup. He was sporting director at Brighton when they brought in coach Graham Potter, plus a bundle of bargains, and climbed into the top half. BY POTTER’S SIDE: Dan Ashworth (right) next to Graham Potter from his time at Brighton. Photo: Reuters In 2022, Alex Ferguson will have asked United to consider Ashworth, writes The Athletic. United didn’t give Ashworth enough power, so he said no. Instead, he went to Newcastle, where he has coordinated the sporting side while the team has gone from the bottom to the Champions League. He has been behind an upgrade of the training field and hired the club’s first head of psychology. Nobody pretends that Ashworth has single-handedly directed the success, and he faces criticism for the club’s signing of Sandro Tonali, the Italian who has been banned for 10 months for breaking betting rules. Still: The clubs where Ashworth works tend to do well. Don’t fall into the trap The hunt for Ashworth shows that Ratcliffe understands where the problems lie. United have already got a new general manager in Omar Berrada, who had a key role at Manchester City. Berrada can bring Jason Wilcox, the director of football at Southampton, who was previously head of the academy at City. Ratcliffe is at work. It would have been tempting for Ratcliffe to buy players first. But he understands that to be successful playing football, United must first find the stars who are not playing football. Thus, the hunt for Ashworth gives fans two pieces of good news. It indicates that Ratcliffe knows what to fix, and that he will get the man who can fix it. This is a big sign that United are on the way back. Who is news’s new expert? 00:45 No one had managed this for over 80 years 01:05 Here they try a unique jump 01:08 Hides the chocolate when he is filmed 00:44 Show more
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