THE blame game has another victim as things go from bad to worse at Old Trafford.
Manchester United’s first sporting director, Dan Ashworth, arrived in the summer and is gone before Christmas.
SunSport exclusively revealed last month that there was trouble at mill.
That the new senior management team were already blaming each other for the mess the club were in.
Chief executive Omar Berrada and Ashworth were trying to wash their hands of it all, claiming they had arrived too late after serving their gardening leave.
New part owner Sir Jim Ratcliffe said making decisions was all down to them.
Meanwhile, Jason Wilcox thought it was all a mess under previous boss Erik ten Hag but was part of the team that encouraged him to stay after every other candidate ran for cover.
There is word Ashworth did not favour appointing his successor and new head coach Ruben Amorim, preferring an English manager with more experience in our game.
Perhaps that was why ex-England gaffer Gareth Southgate’s name was always mentioned after they worked together at the FA.
Either way, Saturday’s showing against Nottingham Forest, after their second-half capitulation at Arsenal a few days previously, proved too much.
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Was it the sight of the ineffective Joshua Zirkzee coming on as a sub that finally did it?
You see, the 23-year-old Dutchman was thought to be a good buy at £36.5million. Ten Hag did not agree but had the player forced upon him.
That is on Ashworth.
Already the club are looking to offload the flop forward.
The word from Old Trafford was that Ratcliffe had issued a ‘liberating decree’ when he arrived on his white charger after acquiring 27.7 per cent of the club last February.
Instead, it all just gets worse. They are locked in a mess of their own making, and nobody seems to have the key to get them out.
Ashworth was supposed to have it, but he spent as much time on gardening leave from Newcastle as he did overseeing much-needed change at Old Trafford.
He walked through the post-match media area with a security guard and the club’s chief operating officer, Collette Roche, around 30 minutes after the full-time whistle following the 3-2 loss on Saturday.
It was odd as he marched with his head down without exchanging pleasantries.
As we go through that process, we are constantly learning about what the best structure will be to help us to win.
Manchester United statement
He was on his way to the boardroom in the East Stand to finally agree to part ways.
He was apparently “not a good fit”.
Although he seems to have been everywhere else he worked.
But a disagreement with the others brought in to put the former foot-balling juggernaut back on the right path had done for him.
The explanation from the club was that the decision had been made “collaboratively following a period of transition for the club”.
Yet it was Ashworth who was supposed to be central to that transition.
It was also said to be a “difficult decision”. The club stressed that they have been building “a new team and structure here at pace”.
They added: “As we go through that process, we are constantly learning about what the best structure will be to help us to win.”
So, the much-sought-after Ashworth, whom the club fought so hard to have released from Toon and paid £3m in compensation for, is now felt not good enough to be part of that ‘structure’.
This is down to Ratcliffe, who is already vying with the Glazers as the most unpopular man at the club.
If a mutual agreement was done collaboratively, it makes you wonder why Ashworth was at Old Trafford on Saturday.
Or had tea cups flown in the directors’ room afterwards?
The sheer enormity of the job on everyone’s hands at Old Trafford appears to be proving too much.
Not a single boss, chief executive, technical director or whatever has gotten to grips with it.
Everyone has an idea of what to do but from the outside it looks like nobody has a clue.
And in the meantime a whopping £1.6BILLION has been spent on players post Sir Alex Ferguson.
Wilcox is now in charge of recruitment but there is nothing left to recruit anyone with.
Spending rules, cost-cutting, payments to departing staff, and a massive wage bill for under-performing stars have all stymied the club.
There will be no big signings in January, nor next summer.
The club is stuck with this lot and they are simply not good enough.
Ashworth knows it, everybody knows it. Amorim said there was ‘a storm coming’.
It has well and truly hit.
