🔗 Share this article

Turns out the manager could survive a loss to Grimsby. Survive losing a crucial continental showpiece against one of the worst Spurs sides in living memory. He could survive home defeats against domestic rivals, finishing 15th, the tactical inflexibility, squandering the team's best academy products, the 32% win rate, calling the squad the poorest the club has ever seen. Yet, there existed a single opponent against whom the Portuguese coach was not permitted to tango. If you challenge the sporting director, and you best not miss.

Regrettably, like many a Premiership defender in Blackburn’s championship 1994-95 season, Amorim took on Jason Wilcox and appears to have missed. The most distracted of readers will notice the paradoxical situation: a coach who often railed his squad for failing in individual battles crumbling when confronted by the white heat and formidable presence of one of the Premier League’s most feared football executives.

And frankly, this entire painful saga appears to portray Jason Wilcox in a whole new light. Perhaps it might have been tempting, given his brief stint of experience at Southampton, to regard him as little more than a functionary within the club's structure: a man who owed his position largely to his friendship with ex-colleague Omar Berrada rather than any demonstrable skill. How wrong we all were. By masterfully outmanoeuvring United’s feted head coach, as he outmanoeuvred the unfortunate a previous executive before him, Jason Wilcox has demonstrated as one of the sport’s strategic masterminds: a tactical intellect that the club's mid-table rivals are now rightly wary.

The Tactical Clash Over System & Ideology

For example, it was Jason Wilcox who being involved in the leadership that appointed the rigid 3-4-3 advocate Amorim originally, was instrumental in attempting to convince Amorim to abandon his beloved formation. Unsurprisingly, these entreaties met a certain resistance. But perhaps these judgements carry more weight when issued from the mouth of a man the impeccable football pedigree he possesses, a veteran of international appearances and a role in a championship team from 31 years ago.

Perhaps in time he may be persuaded to explain his reasoning publicly. Perhaps at some point he might be asked regarding why the coach is walking away with full compensation, without any compensation reduction clause in place. But Jason Wilcox seldom speaks in public, for excellent reasons. The real thinkers of this sport – individuals such as Jason Wilcox – simply operate at a level beyond our own prosaic understanding. If he ever did speak, probably we would perceive is a series of ultrasonic blips and four-dimensional whirring. Desiring an explanation is not equivalent to being ready to comprehend it.

The Supreme Power Behind Command

Naturally, by focusing our attention on the sporting director we are obscuring the true genius behind the club's current leadership. Jason Wilcox is, in reality, simply carrying out the commands of his superior the billionaire owner, who privately has emphasized his desire for a back four. According to reports, the owner has also suggested playing Bryan Mbeumo as a right wing-back. The owner is eager for United to embrace analytics and analytics. According to ESPN, during a leadership summit early in his minority ownership, he declared that United’s style to football “will be decided by this group”.

After all, Ratcliffe is a specialist in these intricate footballing stuff, leveraging his previous experience in petrochemicals and sailing. Most importantly he remains immensely wealthy, and it is known, the wealthy are superior: more perceptive, sagacious, more tactically astute, fundamentally superior. Who else would you trust to manage an enlightened programme of austerity, the building of a new stadium that appears a lot like an abstract design, the acquisition of a new striker?

The Modern Football Order: Directors Over Coaches

This is a trend we are increasingly seeing at the elite levels of the game. Historically, clubs foolishly entrusted big footballing decisions to low-level employees such as coaches, talent spotters – players themselves. Maybe previously feasible for a young, innovative manager with a philosophy and drive to go into an organization and see their vision through to completion. But how many companies have such individuals set up? What number of mass redundancies have they managed? Far preferable to invest the real power where it rightly belongs: the executive class, the casually dressed executives, the guys with impressive LinkedIn profiles. It is wiser to decide the strategy by the directors and hire a coach who will adapt their methods to suit. If managers were formerly chefs, they are now more akin to Deliveroo drivers: not really responsible for the product, yet finally accountable should it be delivered poorly or leaks out to meet standards.

Nowadays, their job is increasingly less about defining the vision and more about marketing it: the front-facing representative of the operation, the public face of an organisation they have minimal power to change. A coach at Chelsea leads a team of literal children into the Champions League and secures two medium-sized trophies, and essentially is dismissed for speaking out. Wilfried Nancy sees his standing damaged whereas those individuals who appointed him continue to make errors indefinitely.

A Neoliberal Game: Responsibility Only for the Coaches

And possibly on some microcosmic level this represents corporate governance at work: the rise of a gilded overclass who can never be wrong, whose decisions remain sacrosanct, whose mistakes can invariably be resolved by sacking without justification. Appoint the 3-4-3 coach only to dismiss him for playing excessively that system. Hire the process guy and later discard him for taking too long. And most importantly show gratitude; for your modest season ticket price rises, for your new player acquisitions, for the reality that the adults – however well qualified – remain in control.