George Caulkin has revealed what Dan Ashworth won’t be focussing on at Newcastle United while speaking on Pod on the Tyne.
Newcastle’s pursuit of Ashworth is continuing to drag on longer than some fans may have expected or even wanted, however, the owners are seemingly looking to strike the best deal for them and the club and not pay over the odds for someone who will join them at some point this year when his gardening leave ends.
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During his time at Brighton & Hove Albion, Ashworth was influential in helping develop the women’s team, opening up a training complex for them as well as helping the youth teams develop a similar style of football as the first team to ensure progression was as smooth as possible.
On a similar note, Caulkin has now clarified that Ashworth is not being brought into Newcastle to simply become a chief transfer guru.
He said: “The other thing that is worth clarifying is that there is this sense that he is coming to Newcastle to suddenly be the chief figure in terms of transfers. So there was this enormous need to get him in position before January, and again, there’s that sort of need to do it before the summer – and that’s not the case.
“That is not what he really did at Brighton, it wasn’t about player recruitment, he had a much wider remit.”
TIF Thoughts on Ashworth…
This may come as a shock or surprise to some Newcastle fans who thought Ashworth would purely be identifying and bringing in top targets to help their revolution. However, if the soon-to-be director of football can help improve the club’s academy, that could be as important, if not a little bit more, than signing new players.
This is because if Ashworth can spot a young player coming through the ranks and advise that he’s put into the first team instead of splashing out £30-40m on a different target, that will help improve other areas of the squad and club, making them a lot better run and a lot more efficient in how they operate.
In other news: £6.3m-rated Newcastle ace gets special recognition from MOTD pundit