Who is Sam Jewell? Dan Ashworth's Brighton prodigy who could join Manchester United

Sir Jim Ratcliffe is wasting little time attempting to rebuild the Manchester United boardroom upon ratification of his acquisition of the club from the Premier League on Tuesday.

On Valentine's Day, MEN Sport reported the club's top sporting director target Dan Ashworth wants to join United after spearheading the recruitment drives at Brighton and Hove Albion and more recently Newcastle United. Fresh reports on Thursday shed some light on how far-reaching Ashworth's role will be.

According to ESPN, Ashworth would be allowed to appoint his own recruitment staff to join the team. One of the names who is believed to be high on the list is the Seagulls' head of recruitment Sam Jewell.

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The Manchester Evening News has taken a closer look as to who Jewell is and why Ashworth could be interested in bringing him to Old Trafford.

As mentioned above, Jewell is the current head of recruitment at Brighton but his journey began lower down the football pyramid. The 34-year-old's first job in football came at Newport County in August 2015 where he spent nearly two months as the South Wales club's opponent analyst.

From October, he spent the remainder of the 2015/16 season at Swindon Town as their chief scout before joining the Seagulls as youth chief scout in July 2016. Jewell held this role for six years before being promoted to head of recruitment in November 2022.

During this time, he worked closely with Ashworth who is believed to be a 'big admirer' of Jewell.

As some of you may have worked out from his surname, Jewell has connections to the North West of England. His father Paul was the