Ashworth left Brighton in February but it was not until May that he took formal charge of Newcastle as the director of football.
It took a while for Newcastle to work out compensation with Brighton but he did take charge of the club’s transfers in the summer transfer window.
The 51-year-old is rated highly for his work at Brighton and had made an impact in helping Newcastle land their targets.
And it has been claimed that Manchester United did make probes to see whether he would be interested in a role at Old Trafford before he ended up at Newcastle.
John Murtough is the director of football at Manchester but the club are looking to add more experts to their technical hierarchy.
An enquiry was made for Ashworth but Manchester United wanted him to work within the existing set-up.
At Newcastle he landed the top of director of football, which Manchester United were not prepared to offer.
