Eddie Howe tells Erik ten Hag what Dan Ashworth will change at Manchester United

Newcastle United manager Eddie Howe was asked about the departed Dan Ashworth, who is expected to join Manchester United as the club’s sporting director.

Manchester United are fighting hard to appoint Newcastle United‘s Dan Ashworth as the club’s new sporting director amid a shedload of changes by INEOS at Old Trafford.

Surrounding Erik ten Hag, there is a new structure that is beginning to take shape, with Ashworth joining alongside new CEO Omar Berrada from Manchester City and technical director Jason Wilcox, formerly of Southampton.

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With this in mind, many have been wondering what changes Ten Hag will see, assuming he keeps his role in charge of the squad beyond this summer.

Ashworth has been placed on gardening leave with Newcastle. Both Northern clubs are battling to agree on a fee for terminating his time off work, and Newcastle United manager Eddie Howe has explained what will change for Ten Hag.

Eddie Howe’s input

Ten Hag, at the moment, has a lot of control over the incomings and outgoings of his squad, but the lack of structure above him has led to what some deem as incompetent decisions across the squad.

However, Howe has explained that Ashworth will become a reference point for Ten Hag, or whoever is in charge of the side going forward.

“When Dan was here, it was very much him; Dan would be my reference point on anything really,” Howe told Gary Neville on The Overlap. “Now Dan’s left; it’s Darren Eales, the CEO. In terms of my working week and day-to-day, nothing has changed.

“It depends on the person; it’s very much individual-based. The owner I had at Bournemouth, he’d sometimes want a chat about the team, not the team I was going to pick.

“Just the squad and everybody was looking. It was very informal and relaxed. I’ve always found that I’ve tried to concentrate on the job and do the job to the best of my ability to help me manage upwards.

“That can alleviate a lot of the problems. When you do communicate, you communicate honestly. If I’ve made a mistake, I come out and say that I’ve made a mistake rather than trying to hide it.”

Howe also revealed that while Ashworth is likely to take the lead on recruitment at Old Trafford, the United boss, currently Erik ten Hag, will have input on transfer matters.

“My actual role in everything isn’t totally different. We had at Bournemouth, in the very early days, one scout who was unpaid. He was working for free, and it was just me and Jason [Tindell] and that was it,” Howe added.

“It would be the unpaid scout going, what about him? We’d have either played against him or seen him. In those days you’d go travel for hours, watch them, and come back, that was it. Now, of course, we have a huge recruitment team, sporting directors.

“But I still have to watch the players in detail before signing them because I’ve got to coach them, invest in them, and take all the time to develop their game. I have to know their games and know that they are going to fit the style, so my actual role in it hasn’t changed, but a lot of the work behind it is more detailed.”