Ratcliffe Realized Dan Ashworth Wasn’t The Man He Thought He Would Be – Martin Keown

Manchester United co-owner, Sir Jim Ratcliffe was right to sack Dan Ashworth as sporting director, Martin Keown has said. He recently had his say while speaking to the press, and fans have been reacting.

According to him, Manchester United clearly have too many cooks in the kitchen, but Sir Jim was right to pull the trigger as soon as he discovered Dan was not the man he thought he was going to be.

Martin added that it was simply a case of power struggle, and Ratcliffe ended up proving he is the boss.

His words, “It would be nice to hear from Dan Ashworth, wouldn’t it? Because it doesn’t seem that we ever quite hear from him. I was troubled with the fact that he wanted to leave Newcastle so quickly. Suddenly something’s glistening in the distance, shiny in the shape of Manchester United and he wants to jump from Newcastle. Okay, what sort of personality are we talking about? The sporting directors, they’re role models within the building. They’re having a say with all the young players, their behaviour, contracts and the rest of it, and then suddenly someone just leaves. Just click of a finger, he’s gone. He turns up at Manchester United and it feels embarrassing now, it’s a power struggle, you know, they’ve got so many different cooks, haven’t they? [Omar] Berrada is the man who’s come from Man City, who’s across the analysis. There’s talk that they maybe weren’t getting that from Dan Ashworth. It’s all speculation right now.

It seems as if you didn’t want him here. Maybe you wanted Gareth Southgate, an English manager. So you’re going to have to go if you’re not going to support what we’re doing. We’re leading you to the back door and off you go. That landscape gardening company that he’s got, it’s going to earn a lot of money. I’m not sure how you can keep going from one club to another like this. It’s a power struggle and Jim Ratcliffe has just said, you know what? It’s not working, off you go. You’re out, and I admire that.

Maybe it’s his football vocabulary that they’re seeing. He seems to want to just go British. He wants English players. He’s championing that. Maybe he doesn’t have the pool of knowledge. Maybe the data and analysis isn’t there. He’s sitting with a pen and paper. Well, we want top computers. It’s not the man we thought it was going to be. There must be something very wrong to suddenly get rid of him completely, I don’t quite understand it.”

WOW.

Manchester United Football Club, commonly referred to as Man United or simply United, is a professional football club based in Old Trafford, Greater Manchester, England. The club competes in the Premier League, the top division in the English football league system.

Nicknamed the Red Devils, they were founded as Newton Heath LYR Football Club in 1878, but changed their name to Manchester United in 1902. After a spell playing in Clayton, Manchester, the club moved to their current stadium, Old Trafford, in 1910.

Alex Ferguson and his assistant Archie Knox arrived from Aberdeen on the day of Atkinson’s dismissal, and guided the club to an 11th-place finish in the league. Despite a second-place finish in 1987–88, the club was back in 11th place the following season. Reportedly on the verge of being dismissed, Ferguson’s job was saved by victory over Crystal Palace in the 1990 FA Cup final.

The following season, Manchester United claimed their first UEFA Cup Winners’ Cup title. That triumph allowed the club to compete in the European Super Cup for the first time, where United beat European Cup holders Red Star Belgrade 1–0 at Old Trafford. The club appeared in two consecutive League Cup finals in 1991 and 1992, beating Nottingham Forest 1–0 in the second to win that competition for the first time as well.