Let him sit in his garden on his wages.... win a psychological battle. It's an opportunity to show strength. Or just be little old Newcastle as usual.
Serious question from a United supporter, is he any good? I know he brought some great cheap players to Brighton but can't really say i have noticed the same at your place.
The downside with that approach is he could still potentially do some work for them behind the scenes, while we pay him for garden leave.
Hard to say really, he's not been here long enough to make a visible impact. He is well thought of. But, Brighton have continued to find cheap gems after he left them and we haven't - so the question is how much influence did he actually have over their scouting/recruitment?
Tony Bloom's analytics company brought and are still bringing great cheap talent. This guy is now on job number 5 since 2013 in a role that's meant to be long term. West Brom England Brighton Newcastle Man Utd I'd also add our Analytics team haven't got a ****ing clue what they're doing and our medical team have been ****.
Think your view very much fits with mine, the scouts have the bigger input and the DoF does the negotiations after watching plkayers they identify.
He calls himself the middle of the cog between the different departments. Medical Scouting Analytics Coaching Player Development Simply not done enough.
Players like Bruno, Trippier, Botman, Isak were all either here or well down the line before he was here off his previous rose pruning session. Players like Tonali (Banned for 10 months), Barnes (injured all year - but that happens) Hall (£30m for about 115 mins all year) are his. Granted Livramento is looking **** hot.
Mind you, what he didn't do is cash in on the likes of Wilson in January, to free up some transfer cash. You can't honestly tell me that it's impossible for a man of Ashworth's reputation to get at least £10+m for an England international centre forward.
There has however been a big focus on bringing in younger players. So I guess we won't know the quality of some of that recruitment for maybe 2-3 years. But some of the lads we've brought in are highly thought of.