Fabrizio Romano claims Newcastle are in advanced talks to appoint Dan Ashworth's successor

Newcastle United could be about to make a huge appointment as the search for Dan Ashworth's replacement draws to a close.

While Dan Ashworth remains on gardening leave due to Manchester United's new footballing boss, Sir Jim Ratcliffe argues over the compensation figure, Newcastle have moved ahead with their recruitment of his successor.

It had recently been revealed that Crystal Palace's Dougie Freedman was the frontrunner for the role, beating out Rui Pedro Braz, Paul Mitchell and Tiago Pinto.

Now Fabrizio Romano as doubled down on that story on X claiming the ball is now in Freedman's court.

Newcastle could be close to making the appointment

Romano says that it's now up to Freedman as to whether or not he leaves Crystal Palace.

"Newcastle are advancing in talks to appoint Dougie Freedman as new Director of Football, negotiations ongoing.

"It’s up to Freedman as he’s doing excellent job at Crystal Palace and now frontrunner for role at #NUFC."

Freedman has done a fantastic job at Palace

Palace fans have long been of the belief that Freedman wouldn't leave his role at Selhurst Park, but surely if that were the case he wouldn't have taken things this far.

Should Freedman accept the position he'd have less control than was handed to Dan Ashworth who was brought in to overhaul the entire club. Learning from their lesson, the Newcastle board have now divided up Ashworth's duties among several different roles and Freedman will be focusing mostly on player recruitment.

It's an area in which he's had great success for Crystal Palace so far, unearthing gems like Eberechi Eze and Michael Olise and even convincing young Brazilian talent Matheus Franca to join Palace over Newcastle.