Body of work proves expert innovator is ideal for United
Ashworth has established a formidable track record just as role of technical director has become pivotal to game
The rise of Dan Ashworth to lead potentially the biggest restructuring programme at Manchester United since Sir Alex Ferguson began their renewal in late 1986, suggests that the club’s sporting director-in-waiting has reached the peak of his profession.
The 52-year-old’s progress, from his first technical director appointment in 2007 at West Bromwich Albion via the Football Association, Brighton, Newcastle United and now to the country’s highest-profile club has been extraordinary.
Wealthy owners such as Newcastle’s Public Investment Fund, and Ineos billionaire Sir Jim Ratcliffe are prepared to pay a high premium for Ashworth’s expertise. Almost four decades on from the end of Ashworth’s own ambitions for a professional career were ended by rejection at Norwich City in 1988, he is now commanding the kind of salary and bonuses that a decent Premier League footballer of 2024 might earn.
The sporting director role is fundamental to English football, with the wealthiest, most competitive top flight in the world and many of its leading clubs sitting within a global multi-club system.
Ashworth’s brief in jobs has been huge. He oversees scouting, recruitment, training ground, sports science, medical, academy, loan pathways, succession planning. At the FA, the women’s teams as well.
Those who know him well and have worked with him say it is best explained in the series of decisions big and small that he makes which all contribute to significant change.
None would argue that every call has been right – but the track record of improvement wherever he has been speaks for itself.
Everything is calibrated so the machine runs smoothly to improve performance at the very top.
At Brighton, for example, who he joined in 2019 after leaving the FA, he reorganised scouting so that scouts were responsible for positions rather than territories. It changed the job entirely but it meant that instead of being a specialist in a single country or region, they became global experts. They knew the market for one position and were able to compare players – their fees and contract values – across the world.
In theory, a simple change, but the results were exceptional. Alexis Mac Allister, Moises Caicedo, Marc Cucurella, and eventually the promotion of Roberto Sanchez to first team all flowed from this, as well as the loan deal for Levi Colwill from
Chelsea. Brighton have pursued that model since the departure of Ashworth.
At the FA, he introduced the England DNA document in December 2014. The title might have been a little unoriginal but the concept was transformative. There were multiple junior tournament wins, including two World Cups in 2017, and the beginning of the Gareth Southgate era which changed the history of the senior team.
He appointed coaches for each age group specifically for in-possession and out-of-possession – having identified that as a key progression in the understanding of how boys should be coached. Now it is standard, and Brighton adopted the measure wholesale for their academy.
Ashworth was a young coach in what would become the academies of Peterborough United, Cambridge United and then West Brom where he rose to academy director in 2004. He earned his Uefa Pro Licence early and he has worked in all aspects of the game outside of managing a first team. He has appointed managers and coaches, and signed players in all agegroups. He has negotiated deals and redesigned training grounds. The rise of the analyst and the growing role of data in football has all fallen within his era.
It has been impossible to be an expert at it all, but Ashworth has shown that one person can build the overarching system that brings it all together. Nowhere more so than when, in 2012 he was handed St George’s Park, the new football centre for the FA.
He changed the junior team coaches and pushed his new coaches to develop a collaborative vision for the way that England teams should play. He demanded a relentless improvement of how coaching sessions should be run and camps for tournaments organised. He implemented a clear talent identification strategy that sought players who were confident on the ball rather than those, preferred in the past, who were simply more physically developed than their peers. He rewrote the FA’S coach education programme.
He built a successful team around him of coaches and specialists, many of whom have gone onto bigger things. Among the junior England coaches of the time were Steve Cooper and Rob Edwards who both started the season as Premier League managers.
The same was the case at Brighton. The head of recruitment Paul Winstanley moved on to be one of the two sporting directors at Chelsea. David Weir, Ashworth’s deputy, stepped up to second in command. Brighton’s staff have been coveted at all levels, including Matthew Green, who left to join Bayer Leverkusen as head of firstteam scouting emerging markets, and Will Abbott, now director of performance at Charlton Athletic. Sam Jewell, son of the manager Paul, is another Brighton recruitment specialist developed under Ashworth.
At Newcastle, he has worked to develop a structure of recruitment in line with the major ambitions of the club and also reinvigorate an academy that many felt had lost its way. Last season’s Champions League qualification under manager Eddie Howe has come ahead of schedule.
Ashworth was approached by Manchester United just before he left Brighton for Newcastle in 2022 and declined because the role on offer was not senior to John Murtough. He wants to do things his way and will seek those assurances from Ineos – well aware that no job he has done thus far will be accompanied by the kind of scrutiny that comes with Manchester United.