🔗 Share this article

Itbecame clear he was able to withstand defeat by lower-league opposition. Survive an important European final versus a particularly poor Tottenham teams in living memory. He could survive home defeats to West Ham and Wolves, a lowly league position, an unwavering system, squandering the team's best academy products, a poor winning percentage, labeling the squad the worst the club has ever seen. Yet, there existed a single opponent with whom Ruben Amorim was not permitted to dance. If you challenge Jason Wilcox, you had better succeed.

Regrettably, like many a top-flight right-back during Blackburn Rovers' title-winning campaign, the coach came at Jason Wilcox and seems to have missed. The most distracted of readers will notice the paradoxical situation: a manager who often railed his squad for failing in one-on-one duels crumbling in the face of the white heat and formidable presence of one of the Premier League’s most feared football executives.

And frankly, this whole bruising episode appears to portray the director in a whole new light. It may have been easy, based on his nine months of experience at Southampton, to view him as little more than a functionary within the club's structure: an individual whose appointment was due as much to his close relationship with ex-colleague Omar Berrada as any demonstrable skill. How wrong everyone was. In brilliantly outmanoeuvring United’s feted manager, as he outmanoeuvred the unfortunate a previous executive earlier, Jason Wilcox has demonstrated to be among the sport’s strategic masterminds: a tactical intellect of which the club's mid-table rivals will now be rightly wary.

A Strategic Clash Regarding Formation and Philosophy

For example, this was the director who being involved in the leadership that appointed the rigid 3-4-3 advocate the coach in the first place, was instrumental in trying to persuade him to abandon his beloved formation. Unsurprisingly, these pleas were resisted. However, such directives carry more weight when delivered by a man with the unimpeachable football pedigree he possesses, a veteran of international appearances and a role in a title-winning side decades past.

Maybe eventually Jason Wilcox may be persuaded to outline his reasoning publicly. Perhaps at some point questions may arise why Amorim is departing with a full payout, without any compensation reduction clause in place. But Jason Wilcox seldom speaks publicly, for excellent reasons. The true intellectuals in football – individuals such as him – simply operate on a plane beyond our own mundane comprehension. If he ever did speak, probably we would perceive is a series of high-frequency signals and four-dimensional whirring. Desiring an explanation is not quite equivalent to being ready to receive.

An Ultimate Authority Behind Command

But of course, in training our focus on Jason Wilcox we overlook the real power behind the club's current leadership. The director is, after all, merely executing the commands of his superior the billionaire owner, who in private has made very clear his preference for a four-man defense. It is reported, Ratcliffe has also suggested playing Bryan Mbeumo in a wing-back role. The owner is eager for United to adopt data science and analytics. Per reports, in an executive meeting soon after his minority ownership, he announced that the team's approach of play “shall be determined in this room”.

Ultimately, Sir Jim is a specialist in these intricate football matters, leveraging his previous experience in industry and yachting. Most importantly he remains incredibly rich, and as we all know, the wealthy are the best of us: more perceptive, more wise, more tactically astute, fundamentally better. Whom else would you trust to oversee an enlightened programme of austerity, the building of a new stadium that appears similar to someone’s leftover knitting, the acquisition of a new striker?

The Modern Soccer Order: Directors Above Coaches

This is a trend that is becoming prevalent in top-tier of the game. For decades, teams mistakenly delegated major sporting choices to low-level employees like managers, talent spotters – players themselves. Perhaps it was once feasible for an up-and-coming, innovative manager with a philosophy and drive to go into a club and implement their plan through to completion. Yet how many companies have such individuals set up? What number of large-scale layoffs have they managed? Far preferable to place the real power where it belongs: the executive class, the casually dressed executives, the guys with the jaw-dropping professional resumes. Better by far to determine the tactics by the directors and hire a coach who can tailor their methods to suit. If coaches were formerly chefs, they are now more like delivery personnel: not really creating the food, yet finally accountable should it be delivered cold or fails to meet standards.

In the meantime, their job is increasingly not about defining the vision and more about marketing it: the front-facing representative on the front desk, the public face for a club they have minimal power to influence. A coach at Chelsea leads a team of literal children into the Champions League and secures domestic cups, and essentially is dismissed for talking. A manager at Celtic finds his standing damaged whereas those individuals who hired him continue to make errors another day.

A Neoliberal Football: Accountability for the Coaches

And possibly on some microcosmic level this is simply corporate governance at work: the rise of a privileged overclass who are infallible, whose choices are always sacrosanct, whose errors can always be resolved by sacking without explanation. Hire the system coach and then fire them for using too much 3-4-3. Hire the project manager and then bin him for taking too long. And above all show gratitude; for your modest increases in ticket costs, for your new summer signings, for the fact that the adults – however well qualified – are in charge.