Matt1892

Anyone else find the attention that this is getting quite bizarre?

February 15th: Ashworth is great, he has details of every player in his laptop. February 18th: Ashworth’s computer and scouting access is blocked.

They were ruthless with the manager change too, although there is no doubt they did the right thing in hindsight.

Give it a week and Man Utd fans will be climbing the walls for him to join them, this saga will consume them for months. Like on here during the summer transfer window.

It wouldn’t be, it is common for a restricted covenant to be around no poaching of staff of a certain level, although it would have to be reasonable so couldn’t be for any longer than 12 months.

Where does it say about 2 years notice period?

I wouldn’t even put him on gardening leave, make him come to work every day to work on developing the academy and women’s team.

It is difficult to see your team mates unmarked in dangerous positions when you constantly run with your head down. He should have been replaced last summer, hopefully he is replaced this one coming.

Longstaff is the passenger in midfield, he has lost his way badly since his injury.

I thought Miley played well today, the shape of the midfield has been a problem all season both defensively and going forward yet we still persevere with it. People will point out that we had success with it last season but if clubs don’t evolve then they would all be playing 4-4-2 still.

Botman couldn’t live with Solanke today, you don’t see him struggle like that very often.

If this form continues in to next season then the pressure will come from the crowd, I don’t think the club will let it go on that long though and I wouldn’t be surprised to see them move him on in the summer if we carry on like this.

The perception of us would have been set by how we handled Bayern’s interest in Trippier, rather than someone behind the scenes.

I know this is harsh but what I’m hoping for is for someone to come in and oversee us poaching youth players before they are about to sign a professional contract, so they sign their first one with us and we pay their old club compensation. Liverpool have done this really well over the last few years and it is a way to boost the academy in the short term.

You would imagine his contract will not only contain a long notice period, but also restrictive convenants within his contract including not being able to work for a direct rival for a period of time of up to a year once his notice period has finished, as well as a non-poaching covenant regarding NUFC employees for the following 12 months. The above things are standard in most employment contracts at executive level, which is why compensation will be more than paying off his notice salary.

They are levels above those clubs in terms of the players they can attract and afford though, so more often than not they buy big name ready made stars at the high end of the market. They won the FA youth cup in 2022 with Mainoo and Garnacho, these players will go on to be better than anything Brentford have ever produced from their academy. This isn’t to say these things cannot be improved, more that it is more difficult to make a significant impact than if you are starting out with the basics like he inherited here.

I doubt our academy or scouting network are anywhere near their level, the women’s team certainly isn’t.

I remember Ronaldo complaining about it but you would imagine it is still far superior to what we had at the point of the takeover, where players were using wheelie bins as plunge pools or whatever it was.

I wouldn’t be surprised if he hasn’t informed the club of his desire to move and is supporting the club in securing a replacement. I don’t think he has had much of an impact here but from what the Athletic have said about his time here, which all fall outside of things included for FFP, you would think it is going to be more difficult for him to have an impact at Man Utd, based on them having all of those things far superior than us anyway (academy, training facilities, women’s team) yet not have the financial leeway for improvements.

I am not sure he has done anything of note thus far to justify being upset about his potential departure. Any idea of the competition we paid Brighton for him?

We would be lucky to get our money back on Joeinton.

Another team that will try and hit us with pace down Burns side on the counter, it could be either Tavernier or Semenyo down their right hand side.

There are a lot of similarities between Billing and Joelinton in the centre of midfield. I think we overrate Joelinton as fans on his ability in the middle, the best we have seen of him here is wide left with Willock filling the left central midfield slot.

Fully onboard with the club picking up some free transfers to pad out the squad, as long as they are the right profile. We can then sell players under contract to boost first team signings.

I thought he was booked for waving the imaginary card rather than the foul.