🔗 Share this article

Itranspired Ruben Amorim was able to withstand a loss to lower-league opposition. Survive losing a crucial continental showpiece versus a particularly poor Spurs sides in living memory. He withstood home defeats against West Ham and Wolves, a lowly league position, his rigid approach, laying waste to some of the club’s best academy products, a poor winning percentage, calling his team the poorest in Manchester United history. But there was a single opponent with whom the Portuguese coach was not permitted to dance. You come at Jason Wilcox, you had better succeed.

Unfortunately, similar to numerous Premiership right-back in Blackburn’s championship 1994-95 season, the coach came at Jason Wilcox and appears to have missed. The most distracted of readers can see the irony here: a coach who often railed at his players for losing individual battles crumbling in the face of the white heat and formidable presence of a England's top division's most intimidating sporting directors.

And frankly, this whole bruising episode seems to paint Jason Wilcox in a whole new light. It may have been tempting, based on his nine months in a similar role at Southampton, to regard Jason Wilcox as little more than a functionary in the United exoskeleton: an individual who owed his position largely to his close relationship with his former boss Omar Berrada as any verifiable talent. How mistaken everyone was. By masterfully outmanoeuvring the club's celebrated manager, just as he bested the hapless Dan Ashworth before him, Jason Wilcox has proved himself as one of football's strategic masterminds: a strategic mind of which United’s mid-table rivals are now rightly wary.

A Strategic Clash Over Formation and Philosophy

For example, it was Jason Wilcox who being involved in the leadership that appointed the 3-4-3 fundamentalist the coach originally, was instrumental in attempting to convince him to abandon his favored 3-4-3. Naturally, these entreaties faced pushback. But perhaps these judgements hold greater authority when delivered by a man with the unimpeachable soccer background he possesses, holder of three England caps and a contributor to a title-winning side from 31 years ago.

Perhaps in time he might agree to outline his reasoning to the rest of us. Perhaps at some point questions may arise regarding why the coach is walking away with full compensation, with no compensation reduction clause activated. But Jason Wilcox speaks rarely in public, for excellent reasons. The true intellectuals of this sport – individuals such as Jason Wilcox – function at a level beyond our own prosaic understanding. If he ever did speak, most likely all we would hear would be ultrasonic blips and complex calculations. Desiring an explanation is not quite equivalent to being prepared to comprehend it.

An Supreme Authority Behind the Throne

Naturally, in training our focus on the sporting director we are obscuring the real power behind the club's current leadership. Jason Wilcox is, after all, simply carrying out the commands of his superior Sir Jim Ratcliffe, who in private has made very clear his preference for a back four. It is reported, the owner has also suggested playing Bryan Mbeumo in a wing-back role. Ratcliffe is keen for the club to embrace data science and analytics. Per reports, during a leadership summit early in his investment, he declared that the team's approach to football “shall be determined in this room”.

After all, Ratcliffe is a specialist in these intricate football matters, drawing from his background in industry and sailing. Above all he remains immensely wealthy, and as we all know, the wealthy are the best of us: more insightful, sagacious, more tactically astute, simply superior. Who else would you trust to manage an enlightened programme of cost-cutting, the construction of a new stadium that looks similar to someone’s leftover knitting, the signing of a new striker?

A Modern Football Hierarchy: Executives Above Managers

This represents a shift we are increasingly seeing at the elite levels of the game. Historically, teams mistakenly entrusted big footballing decisions to low-level employees like managers, scouts – even footballers. Maybe previously possible for a young, innovative manager with a philosophy and energy to join an organization and see their vision through to completion. But how many businesses have such individuals set up? How many large-scale layoffs have they managed? Better by far to place the real power where it rightly belongs: the executive class, the casually dressed executives, the guys with impressive professional resumes. It is wiser to determine the strategy by the directors and hire someone who will adapt their methods accordingly. If managers were formerly chefs, they are now more like Deliveroo drivers: not really creating the food, but still ultimately answerable should it be delivered poorly or leaks out of the box.

Nowadays, a coach's role is increasingly not about defining the vision and more about selling it: the receptionist of the operation, the public face for a club they can do little to influence. A coach at Chelsea leads a team of very young players into Europe and secures domestic cups, and effectively is dismissed for speaking out. A manager at Celtic finds his reputation ruined whereas those individuals who hired him continue to make errors indefinitely.

A Neoliberal Football: Responsibility for the Coaches

And possibly on some microcosmic level this represents corporate governance at work: the rise of a gilded elite who are infallible, whose decisions are always untouchable, whose mistakes can always be resolved by sacking without justification. Hire the system coach and then fire him for playing too much that system. Bring in the project manager and later discard them for requiring too long. And most importantly be grateful; for the incremental increases in ticket costs, for your new player acquisitions, for the fact that the grownups – however well qualified – remain in control.