Even by the standards of the men who now manage Manchester United, Dan Ashworth's departure was cruel in the extreme.
Ashworth was in the directors' lounge at Old Trafford with his family on Saturday evening when he was called to a meeting with CEO Omar Berrada following the 3-2 defeat to Nottingham Forest.
Accompanied by a security guard, Ashworth followed chief operating officer Collette Roche through the media auditorium shortly before 8pm, where the press waited to speak to Ruben Amorim about United's second defeat in four days.
Ashworth is a friendly, approachable character, but it was noticeable that he kept his head down and avoided eye contact with journalists as he walked around the room.
Mail Sport understands he left through the concourse and then through the warren of corridors linking Old Trafford from the Sir Bobby Charlton Stand to the East Stand, where Berrada and United's other senior executives have offices close to the boardroom.
It was there that Berrada informed Ashworth that he would be leaving with immediate effect after just 159 days as the club's sporting director.
Ashworth's five months at United is roughly the same amount of time he spent on garden leave at Newcastle from February to early July.
Newcastle initially wanted £20 million for Ashworth, such was the value they placed on the former FA director of football.
“What I find completely absurd is the suggestion that a man who is really good at his job will sit in his garden for a year and a half,” Sir Jim Ratcliffe, United's minority owner, said at the time, after describing Ashworth as a '10/ 10 sporting director, one of the best there is'.
The clubs eventually agreed on a compensation amount of around £3 million. Less than six months later, Ratcliffe once again reached into his pocket to pay off Ashworth, although it is understood this figure would have been even higher had he stayed at the club longer.
When you consider United's latest financial results, which show that the cost of replacing Erik ten Hag and his coaching staff with Ruben Amorim and his Sporting Lisbon backroom team was £21.4 million, the price of underperformance is grotesque at a time when 250 staff have been lost. their jobs as part of Ratcliffe's ferocious cost-cutting program.
The money United will save will be eaten up by the costs of mistakes made higher up the chain of command.
Ironically, one of the reasons given for Ashworth's death last Sunday was his failure to make further cuts to the football activities at Carrington, where he was based, and where there was reportedly shock at the training field after the news.
Others include the fact that he simply did not fit in with the new leadership team, with sources admitting that Ineos has been building the structure at pace over the past year and is still learning about the process.
There has also been a clash of personalities behind the scenes after Ratcliffe and his right-hand man Sir Dave Brailsford brought in Berrada and Ashworth in July to work alongside technical director Jason Wilcox, interim recruitment director Christopher Vivell and CEO-turned.. .director Jean-Claude Blanc.
Ashworth is said to have been less enthusiastic than Berrada in appointing Amorim as Ten Hag's successor, preferring an English coach.
Notably, after being quoted on behalf of the club when Ten Hag's contract was extended in July, Ashworth did not make a similar comment on the occasion of Amorim's appointment announcement last month.
With Ten Hag's future at stake, Ratcliffe claimed in early October that the decision was 'not my decision'. In reality, sources insist that Ratcliffe and Brailsford are the two key decision-makers at United.
Although Ashworth's departure was presented as a mutual decision in a club statement on Sunday morning, it is believed the call was made by Ratcliffe and Brailsford in conjunction with co-chairman Joel Glazer.
It is the latest example of Ratcliffe's ruthless approach since his £1.3 billion minority takeover was announced on Christmas Eve almost a year ago and he took charge of the club's day-to-day running.
While that felt like good news at the time for staff and supporters fed up with nearly two decades of Glazer ownership, the past twelve months have brought a more sobering reality.
Although the majority of job losses have fallen to the grassroots, Ineos has overhauled United's executive team and Carrington's football department, while Sir Alex Ferguson has been sacked as club ambassador.
In recent days Ratcliffe has upset supporters by increasing the cost of tickets for members to £66, while cutting concessions for children and pensioners, a move widely seen as a precursor to season ticket price rises next season.
“If you avoid the difficult decisions, not much will change,” the Ineos billionaire said in an interview with fanzine United We Stand that went on sale on Saturday, shortly before Ashworth was shown the door.
The 53-year-old was brought in as part of a recruitment overhaul but leaves after just one transfer window in which United spent a further £200m on Leny Yoro, Manuel Ugarte, Joshua Zirkzee, Matthjs De Ligt and Noussair Mazraoui.
It is understood the club have yet to decide whether to appoint a replacement, with both Wilcox and Vivell able to take on greater responsibility in the January transfer window and potentially take on Ashworth's role on a permanent basis.
Down the hall from the office where Berrada met Ashworth on Saturday evening is the boardroom where the two presented a united front to reporters in early September and talked about a bright new future at Old Trafford.
'We are a team in all of this. It's a collaborative process,” Ashworth said, despite admitting United's summer signings were “fundamentally in pre-agreed positions when I came in.”
“I've probably done 25 windows now and have been doing this for a long time. I don't think there's ever been a window where we've said, “Oh God, it went absolutely perfect, we did everything we wanted to do.” There are always pieces.”
Ratcliffe seems less satisfied with the situation. In his fanzine interview last weekend he warned ominously: 'Manchester United must have the best recruitment in the world. It's all about people and we have to find the right ones.' Hours later, Ashworth was gone.
Rather scathingly, Ratcliffe also described United as 'mediocre', and this was also borne out by Forest's first win at Old Trafford in thirty years.
A poor defensive performance saw United concede goals early in both halves to Nikola Milenkovic and Morgan Gibbs-White, with Chris Wood heading the third.
Goals from Rasmus Hojlund and Bruno Fernandes could not prevent Amorim from suffering back-to-back defeats as United remained in 13th place in the Premier League.
Ashworth sat with his family close to Brailsford, Berrada and Wilcox in the director's box and will have watched and wondered how he could help solve United's shortcomings when the transfer window opens in just over three weeks. Now it's no longer his problem.
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