What happens with Dan Ashworth now that Sir Jim Ratcliffe's Man United buy-in is finalised?

Today saw Manchester United fans get an early Christmas Present as Sir Jim Ratcliffe's £1.25billion buy-in to the club was announced.

The deal had been on the cards for a while but Christmas Eve saw the announcement Man United fans had been waiting for and now the INEOS chief will take over the footballing side of the Manchester United brand and will also have input to the commercial side which will still be run by the Glazers.

Obviously. this is not a Manchester United site, so why should we care? Well, it has long been speculated that one of the first appointments to be made by Ratcliffe will be Newcastle United's sporting director, Dan Ashworth.

We aren't as confident in Ashworth staying as we once were

Ratcliffe and Ashworth have a good relationship already and it is heavily suggested that Ashworth could be about to accept the new role.

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We've been pretty adamant that Ashworth won't leave. That he'd be crazy to leave the project he's started here before it has bore any real fruit and that going into Manchester United in the state that it's in right now would be a backwards step.

However, looking at it another way. Being the one who went into Manchester United at its lowest and turning it around - that's something to brag about so there is certainly an appeal there to someone like Ashworth. Let's be honest, he did leave Brighton to come to us, so he's not above switching clubs when it suits him.

Dan Ashworth came in for some criticism online after the Luton defeat

The real question for Newcastle fans is, how would it affect us if he left? There were plenty of people online yesterday pointing the finger at Ashworth after we were beaten by Luton. There's clearly a feeling that the recruitment wasn't good enough and we're paying the price.

Personally, I think that's harsh. We can all point fingers at the Sandro Tonali deal, but there was more than just Ashworth who dropped the ball there. There's no way anyone could have predicted Harvey Barnes' gammy toe. Tino Livramento has been outstanding and Lewis Hall - okay, that one so far has been a stinker, but he was brought in for the future, really.

There's little doubt in our mind that Dan Ashworth is the best in the game at what he does and if we lose him we lose a big part of what makes this project so exciting, but we're Newcastle United and we will get past this hurdle should he leave. We will find someone else. We will succeed.