🔗 Share this article

Tbecame clear he could survive losing against Grimsby. He weathered losing a crucial continental showpiece against a particularly poor Tottenham teams for many years. He withstood home defeats against domestic rivals, a lowly league position, the tactical inflexibility, squandering some of the club’s most promising homegrown talent, the 32% win rate, calling the squad the worst in Manchester United history. Yet, there existed one adversary against whom Ruben Amorim was not permitted to tango. If you challenge the sporting director, and you best not miss.

Unfortunately, like many a top-flight right-back in Blackburn’s title-winning campaign, Amorim took on Jason Wilcox and seems to have failed. The most casual observer can see the irony here: a coach who often railed at his players for failing in individual battles succumbing when confronted by the white heat and animal charisma of one of the Premier League’s most intimidating sporting directors.

In truth, this whole bruising episode seems to paint Jason Wilcox in a whole new light. Perhaps it might have been tempting, given his brief stint in a similar role at Southampton, to view him as merely a drudge in the United exoskeleton: an individual who owed his position as much to his friendship with ex-colleague a fellow executive as any demonstrable skill. How wrong everyone was. By masterfully outmanoeuvring the club's celebrated manager, just as he bested the unfortunate a previous executive before him, he has demonstrated as one of the sport’s true generals: a tactical intellect that the club's competitors will now be rightly wary.

The Tactical Conflict Over Formation and Ideology

For example, this was Jason Wilcox who having been part of the hierarchy that appointed the 3-4-3 fundamentalist Amorim originally, was instrumental in trying to persuade Amorim to abandon his beloved formation. Unsurprisingly, these pleas were resisted. But perhaps such directives carry more weight when delivered by a man of a man the impeccable soccer background he possesses, holder of international appearances and a role in a championship team from 31 years ago.

Maybe eventually he may be persuaded to outline his thought processes to the rest of us. Maybe one day he might be asked regarding why the coach is departing with a full payout, without any compensation reduction clause in place. The director speaks rarely in public, and with very good reason. The true intellectuals of this sport – men like Jason Wilcox – simply operate at a level beyond our own prosaic understanding. Were he to speak, probably all we would hear is a series of high-frequency signals and complex calculations. Desiring an explanation is not quite the same as being prepared to comprehend it.

The Supreme Power Behind the Throne

Naturally, in training our focus on Jason Wilcox we are obscuring the real power behind the club's current leadership. The director is, in reality, merely executing the commands of his superior Sir Jim Ratcliffe, who in private has made very clear his preference for a back four. It is reported, Ratcliffe has also suggested deploying the forward in a wing-back role. Ratcliffe is keen for United to adopt analytics and metrics. Per reports, in an executive meeting early in his minority ownership, he declared that the team's approach of play “will be determined by this group”.

After all, Ratcliffe is an expert in these intricate footballing stuff, drawing from his previous experience in industry and yachting. Above all he is immensely wealthy, and as we all know, the rich are superior: more perceptive, more wise, strategically brilliant, simply better. Who else would you trust to oversee a strategic plan of austerity, the construction of a new stadium that looks a lot like someone’s leftover knitting, the acquisition of a new striker?

A Modern Football Hierarchy: Executives Over Coaches

This is a trend we are increasingly seeing at the elite levels of the game. Historically, clubs foolishly delegated major sporting choices to subordinate staff like managers, talent spotters – players themselves. Maybe previously feasible for an up-and-coming, visionary coach with a philosophy and energy to go into a club and see their vision supported to fruition. But how many companies have these guys set up? How many mass redundancies have they managed? Better by far to invest the real power where it rightly belongs: the leadership tier, the casually dressed executives, the guys with the jaw-dropping LinkedIn profiles. It is wiser to decide the tactics by the directors and hire a coach who will adapt their offering accordingly. If managers were formerly chefs, they have become more like delivery personnel: not responsible for the product, but still ultimately answerable should it be delivered poorly or fails of the box.

In the meantime, their job is increasingly less about defining the vision and more about selling it: the front-facing representative of the operation, the visible figurehead of an organisation they can do little to change. Enzo Maresca takes a squad of very young players into Europe and wins domestic cups, and essentially gets sacked for talking. A manager at Celtic finds his reputation ruined while those individuals who appointed him live to blunder another day.

The Modern Corporate Football: Accountability for the Few

And perhaps in a small way this is simply neoliberalism at work: the rise of a gilded overclass who can never be wrong, whose decisions are always sacrosanct, whose errors can invariably be resolved by sacking without explanation. Appoint the 3-4-3 coach only to dismiss him for playing excessively that system. Bring in the process guy and then discard him for taking excessive time. And above all be grateful; for your modest season ticket price rises, for the latest player acquisitions, for the reality that the grownups – however well qualified – remain in control.