Newcastle more likely than Liverpool to land 44-year-old sporting director to replace Dan Ashworth

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Newcastle United are understood to be in the driving seat for one of their targets to replace Dan Ashworth with Liverpool also interested.

It was announced last week that Richard Hughes would be leaving his role as a director at Bournemouth with a new job lined up for the summer, sparking rumours about the vacant spot at Newcastle.

After rumours that he could be heading to Liverpool instead, a new report from The Independent is now claiming that Hughes is more likely to join Newcastle than he is their Premier League rivals.

Newcastle to beat Liverpool to key addition

It’s not often that Newcastle have the advantage when it comes to attracting key figures in football, but Hughes’ connection with Eddie Howe looks to be working in their favour.

The pair spent a lot of time together at Bournemouth and are believed to have a strong relationship which is exactly why he was linked with the Newcastle job in the first place.

Nothing is official yet, of course, but the board at Newcastle will certainly feel confident that they have the better bargaining tool for negotiations should both them and Liverpool come knocking.

Hughes is understood to have already accepted a new role in football so it shouldn’t be long until it is discovered where his next move will be with Roma also interested in the 51-year-old.

Newcastle like to take their time with these decisions

Rarely have Newcastle’s new owners made a blunder when it comes to making a key decision regarding the club, but they always take their time an make sure they are considering all possibilities before confirming something.

That’s just one reason why Hughes may not be heading to the North East, purely because the board typically like to take a little longer when debating these things.

That, of course, is just basing it off their previous history and not absolute fact, but with Ashworth only deciding to leave a few weeks ago it does feel like a very quick turnaround.

Amanda Staveley and co will understandably want the best candidate for the role to help take Newcastle to the next level and they won’t mind if that decision takes a matter of months to make.