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Dan Ashworth (now working for Manchester United)


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I can't see why Ashworth would be any more (or less) likely to work for a new club whilst on gardening leave now, than he was when he was on gardening leave waiting to join us. Although we don't have that answer, the club will, and it'll play into their negotiations.

 

That said, this will absolutely drag on. The window is closed, there's no reason at all for either side to make a significant move in their bargaining position until the summer window gets underway so I guess he's got a few months at least whilst we all just sit looking at each other.

 

For me though, I'd rather pay him his wages to do nothing for 2 years than to reduce our asking price by even 1p, just based on how Man U were with Lingard. It also sends out a message to other clubs that they need to start dealing with us fairly, or there'll be times in the future where we'll have something or someone they want and we won't be amenable to them.

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12 minutes ago, Jack27 said:

 

Suggests he (Ashworth) led the negotians with Bruno that were going nowhere, before Staveley and Ghodoussi stepped in and took over, leading to his new contract (with the clause), and suggests the same has/will happen with Joelintons contract too.

 

 

Edited by TK-421

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50 minutes ago, Dan Gleebals said:


To have been put on Gardening Leave, he will have essentially given notice to terminate his contract, which has must have done. He is therefore serving his notice period, which I suspect will be 6-12 months (most likely 6).  Gardening leave is simply a period where the person is serving notice, but not fulfilling their daily responsibilities.  He is still under contract for that period, and any breach of contract would be dealt with accordingly.  There will also be non-compete clauses, I would have thought which might live beyond his notice period (poaching staff/players etc).

Hence, the only way he could start earlier, and be free of his contractual notice would be for him to buy out his contract (at his expense) or Manu negotiate a deal on his behalf, which I they are pressumably going to try and do. 

This was my thoughts.

 

Was getting a bit confused by people saying we have to pay his full salary until he joins Man Utd (and thus should let him go to save money - maybe this is wishful thinking from Man Utd fans).  Unless football director contracts are structured completely differently to regular employment contracts.

 

Would assume that he has a 12 month non-compete clause in his contract and likely a lengthy notice period.

 

He has resigned, in which case we can accept his resignation and keep him on gardening leave (being paid) whilst his notice period is served, he will then sit around for c.12 months stuck on a non-compete clause where we will not be paying him a penny.

 

The reports that we can keep him off Man Utd's books until 2026 suggests to me a 12 month notice period and 12 month non-compete - this is mostly conjecture, but the notice period + non-compete must add up to 24+ months if the 2026 date is true.

 

At worst, our exposure to sunk PILON costs looks to be £1.5m, a immaterial amount in the grand scheme of things.

 

Man Utd fans think that we should bow down and let him go?  Fuck that with how they treated us with Lingard (and the player himself who had been there for decades).  Wouldn't be doing them any favours at all, £20m or let him rot for 24 months, £1.5m to pay for Man Utd to delay their restructure is nothing.

 

Note: My role has a lot of crossover but I do not work in employment law or HR and happily to be corrected and educated on anything I got wrong above.

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Times reporting that we want 20 million quid for him or he will stay on for the 18 or 20 months gardening leave.

liklehood is that we accept 12-15 Million for him and move on...

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There is a great deal of speculation and argument over a lot of things none of us can know or will likely ever know:

 

1. The specifics of Ashworth's role in our transfers

2. The specific things he has done to create and build out our infrastructure 

3. The nature of his relationships with the coaching staff and the owners

4. How indispensable (or not) his specific knowledge and methods are

5. How much of our methodology leaves with him and would have to be rebuilt or reimagined

 

We can speculate all we like, we can claim to talk to friends of friends, we can scrutinise public comments, none of it will actually help us have concrete information to address those issues above. 

 

At the end of the day, he is obviously very good and very well-thought-of within the industry. And it can't be a good thing for us to have to pivot to a new Sporting Director after only a year or so. But to say it's a crushing blow or to say that Ashworth was worthless are equally knee-jerk reactions that aren't supported by data. We will never truly know those answers, and that's OK. 

 

The fact remains that we are supremely wealthy as a club and are extremely attractive to prospective employees. I have no doubt that PIF, Staveley, Ghodoussi, and Eales will find a fantastic candidate and we will continue apace. 

 

And yes, they can either pay £20mm or get fucked. Zero motivation, I'd imagine, for anyone to do Ashworth a solid here. 

 

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31 minutes ago, TK-421 said:

 

Suggests he (Ashworth) led the negotians with Bruno that were going nowhere, before Staveley and Ghodoussi stepped in and took over, leading to his new contract (with the clause), and suggests the same has/will happen with Joelintons contract too.

 

 

 

So this rat not only tried to ruin new contracts for Bruno and Joe but thought Elliot Anderson was our best shot of a Champs League quality #10? Think I'm happy he's gone all Titchmarsch frankly based on these kind of snippets coming out.

 

 

Edited by GEFAFWISP

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I don't imagine he will be made to wait till 2026 to start work (and indeed Man U will look elsewhere if that is the case one would think), some amount will get paid to ease it through but making him wait till after summer transfer window at least feels sensible. There is no need to be either overly vindictive by refusing any amount of money in lieu of seeing out contract (that I guess could have some repercussions with future hires), he is after all perfectly entitled to want to go work for his mate at Man U, especially if things haven't worked out here quite how he hoped. The noise seems to imply a little that he and Howe aren't quite aligned with Howe having more say and power than him in areas of Ashworth's remit. Who knows if true. It's just disappointing for someone who is meant to be dealing with the long term to allow Howe to focus short term has lasted nowhere near as long as hoped I imagine. We can't be rollovers either, they want him soon they need to pay. They think price is silly they can give a counter offer and we'll see hardly rocket science. 

 

Not that bothered, our backroom set up leaves a lot to be desired still but we'll get that whomever is in post.

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21 minutes ago, SUPERTOON said:

Anything interesting in there ?

We want to move from a traditional scout watching recruitment model to a data specific recruitment model. Is in progress and apparently owners were frustrated at how slow the progress was

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We'll replace him without a problem but the way their fans are going on is mental! It's as if we should be honoured they want him and drive him there! 

 

Ferk them and ferk him - make him do the maximum amount of gardening leave and screw them over!

 

 

 

 

Edited by Paully

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47 minutes ago, Eveready said:

This was my thoughts.

 

Was getting a bit confused by people saying we have to pay his full salary until he joins Man Utd (and thus should let him go to save money - maybe this is wishful thinking from Man Utd fans).  Unless football director contracts are structured completely differently to regular employment contracts.

 

Would assume that he has a 12 month non-compete clause in his contract and likely a lengthy notice period.

 

He has resigned, in which case we can accept his resignation and keep him on gardening leave (being paid) whilst his notice period is served, he will then sit around for c.12 months stuck on a non-compete clause where we will not be paying him a penny.

 

The reports that we can keep him off Man Utd's books until 2026 suggests to me a 12 month notice period and 12 month non-compete - this is mostly conjecture, but the notice period + non-compete must add up to 24+ months if the 2026 date is true.

 

At worst, our exposure to sunk PILON costs looks to be £1.5m, a immaterial amount in the grand scheme of things.

 

Man Utd fans think that we should bow down and let him go?  Fuck that with how they treated us with Lingard (and the player himself who had been there for decades).  Wouldn't be doing them any favours at all, £20m or let him rot for 24 months, £1.5m to pay for Man Utd to delay their restructure is nothing.

 

Note: My role has a lot of crossover but I do not work in employment law or HR and happily to be corrected and educated on anything I got wrong above.

This is my understanding also.  The 20 month figure being bandied about suggests 8 month notice/gardening leave period and 12 month anti-compete/restrictive covenant clauses. 

I'd hope after all the effort we took to get DA from Brighton that we've got that part of his contract pretty well tied down.  It would be up to him and/or the competing company to pay the required compensation to get those clauses nullified.  If the contact is as watertight as I expect, the ball is very very much in our court 

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20 hours ago, Bimpy474 said:

 

Basically because no one really knows what his actually day to day detailed remit is, we have a good idea but then from poster to poster that role can be rather inflated, deflated or absolutely wrong.

 

End of the day we're mere babbling baboons spouting nonsensical stuff, it's just some of us are aware we're babbling baboons.

How dare you! I'm a cheeky chimp, not a babbling baboon! ?

 

 

Edited by Joe1984

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On 07/06/2022 at 20:49, Dr Jinx said:

“I just started yesterday but I’ve already had several conversations with Eddie” ? suuuuure 


 

 

On 07/06/2022 at 20:48, 80 said:

Doing his damndest in that video to highlight that he's had absolutely no involvement or close awareness of the club until very recently :)


 

It’ll be different this time though 

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28 minutes ago, Chapo said:


 

 


 

It’ll be different this time though 

Not exactly sure what your point is? Seems like we either make things as difficult as possible for them, or roll over and wish them well. At least with the hire from Brighton relations were apparently very amicable.

 

 

Edited by 80

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9 minutes ago, 80 said:

Not exactly sure what your point is? Seems like we either make things as difficult as possible for them, or roll over and wish them well. At least with the hire from Brighton relations were apparently very amicable.

 

 

 


it wasn’t a dig at yous, I just couldn’t be arsed clipping his interview. My point really is that compo is more valuable than gardening leave because he’ll be consulting with his mates either way. 

 

 

Edited by Chapo

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2 minutes ago, Chapo said:


it wasn’t a dig at yous, I just couldn’t be arsed clipping his interview. My point really is that compo is more valuable than gardening leave because he’ll be consulting with his mates either way. 

 

 

 

Ah right, yeah. It's debatable I think. There's no doubt he could be nudging them towards or away from things he does or doesn't approve of. I think you could argue those nudges will be less valuable for Man United today than they were for us two years ago when we were still in the post apocalypse/don't know what we're doing phase, though. I'm assuming what they want is a firm hand on the tiller to turn a misfiring premier league operation into a competitive international outfit, so there's less low hanging fruit.

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2 hours ago, Jack27 said:

We want to move from a traditional scout watching recruitment model to a data specific recruitment model. Is in progress and apparently owners were frustrated at how slow the progress was

Encouraged by this

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2 hours ago, Jack27 said:

We want to move from a traditional scout watching recruitment model to a data specific recruitment model. Is in progress and apparently owners were frustrated at how slow the progress was

 

If that's the case, and Eddie's on board, let's gan get Gilezy. 

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