- Ashworth left Man Utd after just five months
- Sporting director struggled as part of INEOS structure
- Report reveals key issues between Ashworth and Ratcliffe
Dan Ashworth left Manchester United co-owner Sir Jim Ratcliffe "furious" with public comments insisting he was not part of the decision to retain former manager Erik ten Hag, a report has revealed.
United spent months chasing Ashworth as their new sporting director, but he lasted less than half a season before his departure was confirmed out of the blue on Sunday, just five months after he was initially hired.
A failure to gel with Ratcliffe has been widely cited as one of the reasons for Ashworth's departure, with several reports highlighting a number of issues between the pair.
According to the Daily Mail, Ratcliffe was incensed by public comments from Ashworth who, back in September, insisted he was not part of the decision to retain Ten Hag during the summer. Ratcliffe later argued he was not responsible for keeping the Dutchman either.
The Athletic state Ashworth was pushing for a manager with Premier League experience to replace Ten Hag. Gareth Southgate was a key target on a shortlist which also included Eddie Howe, Graham Potter and Thomas Frank.
Ratcliffe was not impressed by Ashworth's shortlist or his desire to hire a data company to analyse replacements for Ten Hag, instead arguing Ashworth himself should be responsible for such analysis rather than simply oversee the process.
The United co-owner was then left disappointed to see Ashworth take a holiday one day after new head coach Ruben Amorim arrived at the club. While the former sporting director had previously rescheduled family commitments for work, his absence from November’s executive committee meeting did not go down well either.
United's decision to cut ties with Ashworth is largely put down to differences in opinion between him and Ratcliffe, who had envisaged a different sort of sporting director and decided he no longer wanted to wait to see whether Ashworth would ultimately satisfy his demands.
