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 this summer and will be away before Christmas.
SunSport exclusively revealed last month that there were problems at the factory.
That the new senior management team were already blaming each other for the mess the club was in.
CEO Omar Berrada and Ashworth tried to brush themselves off, claiming they had arrived late after serving their garden leave.
New co-owner Sir Jim Ratcliffe said the decision making was all up to them.
Meanwhile, Jason Wilcox found it all a mess under previous boss Erik ten Hag, but was part of the team that encouraged him to stay after every other candidate had run for cover.
It is said that Ashworth was not in favor of 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 manager Gareth Southgate's name was always mentioned after they worked together at the FA.
Either way, Saturday's performance against Nottingham Forest, following their second-half capitulation at Arsenal a few days earlier, proved too much.
Was it the sight of the ineffective Joshua Zirkzee acting as a sub that finally did it?
You see, the 23-year-old Dutchman was considered a good buy at £36.5 million. Ten Hag did not agree, but allowed the player to impose it on him.
That's at Ashworth.
The club already wants to bring the flop forward.
Word out of Old Trafford was that Ratcliffe had issued a 'decree of liberation' when he arrived on his white charger after acquiring 27.7 percent of the club last February.
Instead, it all just gets worse. They're trapped in a mess of their own making, and no one seems to have the key to getting them out.
Ashworth was meant to get it, but he spent as much time on gardening leave from Newcastle as he did overseeing much-needed changes at Old Trafford.
He walked through the post-match media room with a security guard and the club's chief operating officer, Collette Roche, about 30 minutes after the whistle following Saturday's 3-2 defeat.
It was strange when he marched with his head bowed without exchanging pleasantries.
He was on his way to the boardroom in the East Stand to finally agree to a divorce.
Apparently he was “not a good fit.”
Although he seems to have been everywhere he worked.
But a disagreement with the others that had put the former football giant back on the right path had done him good.
The club's explanation was that the decision was 'taken collaboratively following a transition period for the club'.
Yet it was Ashworth who had to be central to that transition.
It was also said to be a “difficult decision”. The club emphasized that they have rapidly built up “a new team and a new structure”.
'This is thanks to Ratcliffe'
They added: “As we go through that process, we are continually learning about what will be the best structure to help us win.”
So the much sought after Ashworth, who the club fought so hard to be released from Toon and paid £3m in compensation for, now feels inadequate to be part of that 'structure'.
This is thanks to Ratcliffe, who is already battling with the Glazers as the most unpopular man at the club.
If a mutual agreement has been reached, you wonder why Ashworth was at Old Trafford on Saturday.
Or had teacups flown into the control room afterwards?
The sheer scale of the task that everyone at Old Trafford must undertake seems to be too much.
No boss, general manager, technical director or whatever has gotten a grip on it.
Everyone has an idea of what to do, but from the outside it seems like no one has a clue.
And in the meantime, a whopping £1.6 billion has been spent on players after Sir Alex Ferguson.
Wilcox is now in charge of recruiting, but there is nothing left to recruit anyone with.
Spending rules, cost cuts, payments to departing staff and a huge wage bill for underperforming stars have all hampered the club.
There will be no major signings in January or next summer.
The club is stuck with this fate and they are simply not good enough.
Ashworth knows it, everyone knows it. Amorim said that “a storm was coming.”
It all worked out well.
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