Report: Dan Ashworth has been told to prune his roses after requesting to leave Newcastle United

Newcastle United's Sporting Director Dan Ashworth is back on gardening leave again after trying to force a move to Manchester United.

According to David Ornstein, Newcastle have placed Dan Ashworth on gardening leave while negotiations take place with Manchester United.

A spell out of the game seems the only fair way to go about things, much like when Ashworth left Brighton to join Newcastle. Given the role he's in, he knows far too much to just walk into another club carrying all of our secrets.

Newcastle aren't messing about now

Meanwhile, Manchester United are whining about the compensation package Newcastle are demanding believed to be around £20million.

Remember, this is the same Manchester United who wanted Newcastle to pay £16.5million for a six-month loan of super-ego Jesse Lingard. They want to think themselves lucky we're only asking £20million.

Man United are willing to wait for Ashworth, but seemingly aren't willing to pay what they believe to be an unreasonable fee, so it looks like the clubs are already at a stalemate and a formal approach still hasn't been made.

Who do Newcastle get in to fill the role now?

Not to sound too bitter or anything but, cry me a river. You can't try and gouge us for a colossal loan fee for a horseradish player and then cry when we try to ask for fair compensation for one of the most integral people to our entire club.

Whatever happens next, the process of looking for a replacement for Ashworth is likely already well underway given how this has been bubbling up for a while.

We just really hope it's not Richard Hughes from Bournemouth. He might be good, we don't even know, but it just seems too simple going back for more Bournemouth stock just because Eddie Howe and Jason Tindall worked with him before. We are losing one of, if not the best in the business, we should be looking to replace Ashworth with someone of a similar level.