🔗 Share this article

Tbecame clear the manager could survive a loss to Grimsby. He weathered an important European final against one of the worst Spurs sides for many years. He could survive home defeats to domestic rivals, a lowly league position, the tactical inflexibility, squandering some of the club’s most promising academy products, the 32% win rate, labeling his team the poorest in Manchester United history. Yet, there existed a single opponent with whom Ruben Amorim was not permitted to tango. You come at Jason Wilcox, you had better succeed.

Regrettably, similar to numerous Premiership defender during Blackburn Rovers' championship 1994-95 season, the coach took on the executive and appears to have missed. Even the most casual observer will notice the paradoxical situation: a coach who often railed his squad for losing one-on-one duels crumbling when confronted by the white heat and animal charisma of one of England's top division's most intimidating sporting directors.

And frankly, this whole bruising episode seems to paint Jason Wilcox in a different perspective. It may have been tempting, based on his nine months of experience with the Saints, to view Jason Wilcox as merely a functionary in the United exoskeleton: an individual whose appointment was due as much to his friendship with ex-colleague Omar Berrada rather than any verifiable talent. How mistaken we all were. In brilliantly outsmarting the club's celebrated manager, as he outmanoeuvred the unfortunate Dan Ashworth before him, Jason Wilcox has proved himself to be among the sport’s true generals: a strategic mind that the club's mid-table rivals will now be rightly wary.

The Tactical Clash Regarding System & Ideology

To illustrate, this was Jason Wilcox who being involved in the hierarchy that appointed the 3-4-3 fundamentalist the coach in the first place, played a key role in trying to persuade him to ditch his beloved 3-4-3. Naturally, these pleas met a certain resistance. But perhaps these judgements hold greater authority when delivered from the mouth of a man the impeccable soccer background of Jason Wilcox, a veteran of three England caps and a role in a title-winning side decades past.

Maybe eventually he might agree to explain his thought processes publicly. Maybe one day questions may arise regarding why the coach is walking away with full compensation, with no penalty clause in place. But Jason Wilcox speaks rarely publicly, and with very good reason. The true intellectuals in football – men like him – function at a level beyond our own prosaic understanding. Were he to speak, most likely we would perceive is a series of high-frequency signals and four-dimensional whirring. Wanting is not the same as being prepared to comprehend it.

The Supreme Power In Command

Naturally, in training our focus on the sporting director we overlook the true genius behind the club's current leadership. The director is, after all, merely executing the directives of his line manager Sir Jim Ratcliffe, who in private has made very clear his desire for a four-man defense. According to reports, Ratcliffe has also suggested playing Bryan Mbeumo as a right wing-back. The owner is eager for United to embrace data science and metrics. Per reports, in an executive meeting soon after his investment, he announced that the team's approach to football “shall be decided in this room”.

Ultimately, Sir Jim is an expert in these intricate football matters, leveraging his background in industry and yachting. Most importantly he is incredibly rich, and as we all know, the rich are the best of us: more perceptive, more wise, more tactically astute, simply better. Who else could one trust to oversee an enlightened programme of cost-cutting, the construction of a new stadium that looks similar to an abstract design, the signing of Benjamin Sesko?

A Modern Football Hierarchy: Directors Above Managers

This is a trend we are increasingly seeing in top-tier of the game. Historically, clubs foolishly delegated big footballing decisions to subordinate staff like managers, scouts – players themselves. Perhaps it was once feasible for an up-and-coming, visionary coach with ideas and energy to go into an organization and see their vision through to completion. But how many companies have these guys set up? What number of mass redundancies have they managed? Better by far to place the real power where it belongs: the leadership tier, the open-necked shirt brigade, the guys with the jaw-dropping professional resumes. Better by far to determine the tactics by the directors and appoint someone who will adapt their methods to suit. If coaches were once chefs, they are now more like delivery personnel: not creating the food, yet ultimately answerable should it be delivered poorly or fails of the box.

In the meantime, their job has become less about defining the vision and more about marketing it: the receptionist on the front desk, the visible figurehead of an organisation they have minimal power to change. Enzo Maresca leads a team of very young players into the Champions League and secures two medium-sized trophies, and effectively gets sacked for speaking out. Wilfried Nancy finds his standing damaged whereas the people who appointed him live to blunder indefinitely.

A Neoliberal Game: Accountability Only for the Few

And perhaps in a small way this represents corporate governance at work: the rise of a privileged elite who are infallible, whose decisions remain untouchable, whose mistakes can always be resolved by sacking without explanation. Appoint the system coach and then dismiss him for using too much that system. Hire the project manager and then discard him for requiring excessive time. And most importantly be grateful; for the incremental increases in ticket costs, for the latest summer signings, for the fact that the grownups – however well qualified – remain in control.