United's new era

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Head Start

Manchester United’s new era

Manchester United have reached a deal with Newcastle to hire their sporting director Dan Ashworth.

It’s all part of Sir Jim Ratcliffe’s mission to poach the best talent from each club. So far he’s succeeded in filling some of the most important roles at the club…

• Former Manchester City chief executive Omar Berrada. 

• Former Southampton academy director Jason Wilcox.

… and now former sporting director at Newcastle, Dan Ashworth. 

The deal has been in the works for a while (Ashworth has been on gardening leave since February) as Man United refused to pay the £20 million compensation fee to Newcastle for Ashworth. 

But the two clubs have finally come to an agreement over the last few days… conveniently just before the PSR deadline (no surprises there).

Ashworth will play an important role for Man United in… overseeing football performance, recruitment and general operations at the club. 

Should Man United fans be excited about the appointment?

If his track record is anything to go by, then the answer is yes. 

During his time at West Brom, he helped deliver two promotions and a top-half Premier League finish for a side on a shoestring budget. 

He’s also been credited for his brilliant recruitment strategies at Brighton where he oversaw the signings of… 

• Moises Caicedo for £4.5 million (Sold to Chelsea £115 million)

• Marc Cucurella for £15.4 million (Sold to Chelsea for £60 million)

• Leandro Trossard for £15 million (Sold to Arsenal for £27 million)

You don’t need a maths degree to know that’s far better - even in relative terms - than Man United’s record £1.19bn net losses on transfers…

… and that’s the reason why Brighton’s recruitment strategy (under Ashworth) was the envy of almost every Premier League club.

Ratcliffe is building a star-studded team off the pitch. But the demands at Man United are greater than virtually any other team, so it’s only a matter of time before we see if the new recruits sink or swim.

Plus…

UEFA is investigating a gesture made by Jude Bellingham after he scored his late equaliser against Slovakia (More)

Lionel Messi headlined the list of 30 players named for next month’s MLS All-Star Game (More)

A leading executive from Manchester United’s new front-of-shirt sponsor Snapdragon says Premier League games abroad make “a lot of sense” (More)

Chelsea sign Barcelona defender Marc Guiu after agreeing to meet his €6 million release clause (More)

Brentford completes club-record £30 million signing (More)

Euros Stats Zone

Last night’s results…

France 1 - 0 Belgium (Highlights) | Portugal 0 (3) - (0) 0 Slovenia (Pens) (Highlights)

RD 16: Portugal 0 (3) - (0) 0 Slovenia

→ This was the first-ever penalty shootout at the Euros or World Cup to see as few as six penalties taken in total.

→ Including his eight efforts in this game, Cristiano Ronaldo has mustered 20 shots at Euro 2024 (no goals), the most of any player, while he has failed to convert three of his nine penalties at major tournaments excluding shootouts.

→ Portugal have reached the quarter-finals of a Euros for the seventh time, more than any other side.

RD 16: Austria vs Turkey (Today at 20:00 BST)

→ This is the first meeting between Austria and Turkey at a major tournament, while they last met in March with Austria winning 6-1 in a friendly match.

→ In competitive matches, however, Turkey are unbeaten in their last five games against Austria (W4 D1), keeping a clean sheet each time.

→ Since Rangnick’s first game in charge in June 2022, only three European nations – Portugal (73%), Spain (67%) and Netherlands (64%) – have a higher win percentage than Austria (60%)

RD 16: Romania vs Netherlands (Today at 17:00 BST)

→ The Netherlands are looking to avoid becoming only the second nation to lose four consecutive knockout matches in the tournament’s history, after Yugoslavia from 1968 to 2000.

→ This is only the second major tournament between these sides, with The Netherlands winning 2-0 in the group stage of Euro 2008.

→ Only Georgia (71) faced more shots among sides to qualify for the knockout rounds than Romania (46).

Poll Time

Changing Tides

The free-agent era (might) finally be taking off 

Before 1995, football clubs had the power to block a move or demand a fee, from a player or club, if the player left at the end of their contract.

(Wild right. Just another example of how the football industry can be completely different to the real world). 

Then came Jean-Marc Bosman. At the end of his contract, RFC Liege wanted £500,000 from his desired club Dunkerque for his move. Dunkerque, like many other clubs at the time, couldn’t afford that fee. Bosman was stuck.

Long story short: four years later, Bosman took his former club to court and won.

Voila. 

The Bosman Rule was born. The start of football’s free agency era…

… or so everyone thought. While the power was back in players’ hands, it didn’t change much… only seven months after the ruling, Newcastle United paid Blackburn Rovers £15 million for Alan Shearer and in 2017, Barcelona were paid a fee of £200 million by PSG for Neymar.

This is because the pendulum swung back in favour of clubs. After a number of rulings, a compromise was struck between the European Commission and FIFA that footballers could not be allowed to just up sticks and leave whenever a more lucrative opportunity came calling.

Fast forward to the present day… and only now are players finally taking advantage of the free-agent model. 

Kylian Mbappé’s free move to Real Madrid is the most known but as The Athletic points out, lesser-known players - like Tosin Adarbioyo and Lloyd Kelly - are rejecting contract renewals in order to seek new contracts elsewhere.

The shift started just after the word starting with C and ending with -19. In the first transfer window during that period, 32.3% of players signed by big-5 league teams were recruited without paying a transfer fee. During the summer 2019 transfer period, this percentage was only 26.2%.

(And by 2021, the number of fee-paying transfers decreased by 6% to a record low).

And it’s way more common in the lower leagues. In the 2022 summer transfer window, 65 players joined Championship clubs on free transfers.

With so many big-name players soon to be free agents - Salah, Alexander-Arnold, Sane, De-Bruyne, the list goes on - it’s likely we’ll see a lot more players run down their contracts for big-money moves.

Off The Pitch

🌪️ Hurricane Beryl makes history as the first Cat 4 storm ever to form in June (More)

🐴 Military horses bolt through London streets again (More)

🎉 15 moments to remember from this year’s Glastonbury (More)

🛫 Boeing will face a criminal fraud charge from the Department of Justice (More)

🏃‍♀️‍➡️ USA’s Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone breaks the 400m hurdles world record for the fifth time (More)

☄️ An asteroid flew past Earth this weekend, missing us by 180,000 miles (More)

Photo of the Day

Denmark are the only European champions who failed to score in their first two matches. After a 0-0 draw with England and a 1-0 defeat to the hosts Sweden, Henrik Larsen scored after eight minutes of their final group match against France. Denmark won the 1992 tournament in a 2-0 victory over Germany in the final, qualifying only after Yugoslavia was disqualified. (Source: Guardian)

Around The Football World

🇨🇱 Chile have filed a complaint to suspend referee Wilmar Roldan after they were knocked out of the Copa America on Saturday following a 0-0 draw with Canada (More)

🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿 Elliot Anderson completes £35m move to Nottingham Forest and Yankuba Minteh joins Brighton for £30m (More)

🇧🇷 Mexico were knocked out of Copa America without reaching the knockout rounds after a 0-0 showing against Ecuador (More)

🇪🇸 Atletico Madrid have extended the contract of defender Cesar Azpilicueta and confirmed the exits of Memphis Depay, Gabriel Paulista and Mario Hermoso (More)

Extra Time

Every Premier League kit revealed for the 2024/25 season.

Kevin De Bruyne wasn’t happy with this interviewer’s question last night.

Some bad blood between Kylian Mbappé and Jan Vertonghen.

Jude Bellingham’s goal from every angle in the stands.

The size difference between regular pitch markings and the current Copa America markings.

Are Spain finally breaking free of their tiki-taka shackles?

Long read: Ice baths at 2 AM and push-ups in the shower - life with Ronaldo's Portugal.

Game Face On

Question: Which team scored a silver goal at Euro 2004?

(Silver goal = a team that leads at the halfway point of extra time are the winners)

Scroll below for the answer.

On Today

FOOTBALL

Euro: Romania vs Netherlands (17:00 BST)

Euro: Austria vs Turkey (20:00 BST)

Copa America: Brazil vs Columbia (02:00 BST)

Copa America: Costa Rica vs Paraguay (02:00 BST)

TENNIS

Wimbledon Gentlemen’s and Ladies Singles Singles First Round (19:00 BST)

*EST -5. PST -8. CET +1. CST +8. JST +9.

Answer

Greece. They won their semi-final at Euro 2004 thanks to a silver goal from Traianos Dellas, who became the only player to score a silver goal in an international football match.

Hottest Take of the Day

Today’s Hottest Take of the Day is from Mick N from Derby: Bellingham and Foden play with World Class players, with England they do not. We expect them to be world-class players but they're not.

Submit another Hot Take of the Day here.