Dan Ashworth on Yankuba Minteh 378 days ago – A year can be a long long time… | OneFootball

Dan Ashworth and Yankuba Minteh.

Two people who we are unlikely to ever see at St James’ Park in the future.

Not representing Newcastle United anyway.

A year can be a very long time when it comes to Newcastle United…

Newcastle United official announcement – 12 June 2023:

Newcastle United have completed a deal to sign 18-year-old Gambia forward Yankuba Minteh from Danish side Odense Boldklub (OB

The promising attacker will officially complete his move to the Magpies on 1st July 2023 before immediately joining Dutch champions and fellow UEFA Champions League competitors Feyenoord on loan for the 2023/24 season.

A highly coveted prospect, Minteh has already made 17 senior appearances for OB in the Danish Superliga, scoring four goals and registering six assists.

Newcastle United sporting director, Dan Ashworth, said: “We are very pleased to be bringing a player with Yankuba’s high potential to Newcastle United.

“He has done extremely well in his first full season in Denmark, and he has a promising career ahead of him. We look forward to working with him in this exciting phase of his development, and we’re excited to see how he performs at Feyenoord, a club that also has a strong development record of its own.

“As well as supporting the first team with players for the here and now, we have a clear philosophy to invest in emerging talent and we want to provide a player pathway that will help to build and sustain long-term success.”

The Newcastle United Sporting Director masterminding the arrival of the exciting 18-year-old Yankuba Minteh to show the ‘clear philosophy’ and desire at NUFC ‘to provide a player pathway that will help to build and sustain long-term success.’

Now 378 days on and where are we?

The ‘long-term’ potential of Yankuba Minteh that we seemingly aren’t going to see a single minute of in a black and white shirt.

Whilst as for Dan Ashworth himself, the only long-term plan at the moment is getting his garden sorted.

Today is day number 128 of Ashworth’s gardening leave, Yankuba Minteh was just over halfway through his season-long loan at Feyenoord when Dan Ashworth was put in limbo after Manchester United made a secret approach directly to the NUFC Sporting Director, rather than doing things properly and professionally.

We have of course since learned that this is very much the Sir Jim Ratcliffe way of doing things.

With Ratcliffe seeing his journey to become a minority shareholder alongside the Glazers starting long long before it was all signed off, initiated long before June 2023… I reckon very very likely that even when Dan Ashworth was welcoming Yankuba Minteh to his ‘long-term’ future at St James’ Park, he (Ashworth) had actually already been sounded out by his mate Sir Dave Bailsford (Ratcliffe’s main man) about joining them at Man U.

Where will Dan Ashworth, Yankuba Minteh and Newcastle United be this time next summer?

Now there’s a question that could have many different potential answers.