“Weak…” Gary Neville calls out Sir Jim Ratcliffe over “shocking” Dan Ashworth Manchester United decision

Gary Neville has explained his dismay at Manchester United’s decision to sack sporting director Dan Ashworth following the club’s 3-2 loss against Nottingham Forest.

Sporting director Dan Ashworth has left Manchester United just five months after joining from Premier League rivals Newcastle United.

Ashworth was appointed during the summer as part of Sir Jim Ratcliffe’s restructuring of United’s upper management. His arrival followed a drawn-out process, which included six months of gardening leave, with United paying approximately £3 million in compensation to Newcastle to secure his early release.

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Despite the significant effort to bring him in, Ashworth’s tenure at Old Trafford has ended abruptly. His departure comes in the wake of United’s 3-2 defeat to Nottingham Forest on Saturday evening.

Reports suggest that while CEO Omar Berrada conducted the discussions that led to Ashworth’s dismissal, co-owner Ratcliffe played a key role in the decision just months after spearheading the push to bring the 53-year-old from Newcastle.

Neville calls out Ratcliffe

Speaking to NBC Sports following the club’s official announcement, former United captain and prominent football voice Gary Neville expressed his extreme dismay at the dismissal, calling decision maker Ratcliffe out for making such a dramatic decision surrounding such a successful man.

Speaking on NBC Sports, Neville said: “Something like that can’t be mutual. We all knew when INEOS came in, there would be huge changes, there has been – massive redundancies in the club, a complete overhaul of the executive in the club, CEO, CFO, sporting director, technical director, manager just recently as well.

“You would have expected large changes but not for this position. Dan Ashworth was headhunted for many, many months, he was chased for about 10 months, he was on gardening leave for four or five minutes, he was paid millions of pounds for, I worked with Dan Ashworth at the FA and he’s been successful wherever he has gone.

“I’m really shocked this morning that this has happened this morning and it’s going to need a lot of explaining. The statement that the club has put out is really poor.

“Manchester United haven’t had a voice for 10 years,” he added. “They lost their authority, their boldness, I think they’ve been getting it back in the last 12 months but what is clear is that there’s a fracture here, something has happened.

“You can’t bring someone at the level of Dan Ashworth, lose him after five months and I think something hasn’t gone wrong.

“Fans are going to be asking the question of what’s gone wrong, they’ll speculate, it’ll leave huge voids and I think it’s better to punch us in the face when it is so obvious that something has gone wrong between the personalities of Dan Ashworth, Omar Berrada, Sir Dave Brailsford.

“Whoever it is in the last few months that have not gone on with each other or it’s not been working. Just tell us, it’s obvious something has happened, I think that statement was weak.”

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