Newly appointed Newcastle United sporting director Dan Ashworth has revealed the secrets behind his successful recruitment strategy at former club West Bromwich Albion. Ashworth was initially appointed as the Baggies’ youth team coach in 2004 before moving into a sporting and technical director role.
It was then that Ashworth became one of the most sought after people in the game, as his superb success rate of signings helped transform Albion from a ‘yo-yo club’, to an established mid-table Premier League side for a number of seasons. Ashworth signed several players who would go onto become cult heroes at the Hawthorns, with the likes of Peter Odemwingie, Claudio Yacob and Gareth McAuley all arriving during his tenure.
Newcastle supporters will be hoping that he can repeat that success rate at St. James’ Park, as Ashworth prepares for his first summer window at the club. Speaking to the Express and Star’s Baggies Broadcast Podcast earlier this month, Ashworth explained in detail the process of how he would identify signings during his time in the West Midlands.
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He said: “All our signings were done in a similar way during that time. We had a small, cupboard-like, room that we called the Shire and we put some satellite boxes in there to record games from all around the world.
“Every day Lee Darnborough (chief analyst) would record 12 games before he went home. We put six or seven cinema seats in there and we’d just sit and watch games.
“And then we’d go to Tony (Mowbray) and say: ‘I think we’ve found one, come and look at this one’. If he agreed, we would then back it up by going out to watch them.”
