🔗 Share this article

Itranspired the manager could survive defeat by lower-league opposition. He weathered an important European final versus one of the worst Tottenham teams for many years. He withstood home defeats to domestic rivals, a lowly league position, his rigid approach, laying waste to the team's most promising homegrown talent, a poor winning percentage, calling the squad the poorest in Manchester United history. Yet, there existed a single opponent against whom Ruben Amorim would not be allowed to dance. You come at the sporting director, you had better succeed.

Regrettably, like many a top-flight defender during Blackburn Rovers' title-winning 1994-95 season, Amorim came at Jason Wilcox and seems to have failed. The most distracted of readers will notice the irony here: a coach who often railed at his players for failing in individual battles succumbing when confronted by the intense pressure and animal charisma of a England's top division's most feared sporting directors.

And frankly, this whole painful saga appears to portray Jason Wilcox in a different perspective. It may have been tempting, given his nine months of experience with the Saints, to regard him as little more than a drudge within the club's structure: an individual who owed his position as much to his close relationship with his former boss Omar Berrada rather than any demonstrable skill. How wrong everyone was. By masterfully outsmarting the club's celebrated head coach, as he outmanoeuvred the hapless a previous executive earlier, he has proved himself to be among football's true generals: a strategic mind of which United’s competitors will now be rightly wary.

A Strategic Conflict Over System & Ideology

For example, it was the director , after having been part of the leadership that appointed the rigid 3-4-3 advocate Amorim in the first place, played a key role in trying to persuade him to ditch his favored 3-4-3. Naturally, these pleas were resisted. But perhaps these judgements carry more weight when delivered from the mouth of a man the unimpeachable football pedigree he possesses, holder of international appearances and a role in a title-winning side decades past.

Maybe eventually Jason Wilcox might agree to outline his reasoning publicly. Maybe one day questions may arise why Amorim is departing with a full payout, without any penalty clause activated. But Jason Wilcox seldom speaks publicly, and with very good reason. The real thinkers of this sport – men like him – simply operate on a plane exceeding our prosaic understanding. If he ever did speak, most likely we would perceive would be high-frequency signals and four-dimensional whirring. Wanting is not equivalent to being prepared to comprehend it.

An Supreme Power In Command

Naturally, by focusing our attention on the sporting director we are obscuring the true genius behind the club's current leadership. The director is, after all, merely executing the directives of his ultimate line manager Sir Jim Ratcliffe, who privately has made very clear his preference for a four-man defense. It is reported, Ratcliffe has also suggested deploying the forward in a wing-back role. The owner is eager for United to embrace data science and metrics. According to ESPN, in an executive meeting early in his investment, he announced that United’s style of play “shall be determined in this room”.

Ultimately, Sir Jim is a specialist in this technical football matters, leveraging his background in petrochemicals and sailing. Above all he is incredibly rich, and it is known, the rich are superior: more perceptive, sagacious, more tactically astute, simply superior. Whom else could one trust to oversee a strategic plan of austerity, the construction of a new stadium that appears a lot like someone’s leftover knitting, the acquisition of Benjamin Sesko?

The Modern Football Hierarchy: Executives Above Coaches

This is a trend we are increasingly seeing in top-tier football. Historically, clubs foolishly delegated major sporting choices to low-level employees such as coaches, scouts – even footballers. Maybe previously possible for a young, visionary coach with ideas and energy to go into a club and see their vision supported to fruition. Yet how many businesses have these guys established? What number of large-scale layoffs have they managed? Far preferable to place genuine authority where it rightly belongs: the leadership tier, the open-necked shirt brigade, the guys with impressive LinkedIn profiles. Better by far to decide the strategy by the directors and appoint someone who can tailor their offering to suit. If managers were once chefs, they are now more like delivery personnel: not really creating the product, but still finally accountable should it be delivered cold or fails of the box.

Nowadays, a coach's role has become not about crafting the philosophy and more about marketing it: the front-facing representative on the front desk, the visible figurehead of an organisation they can do little to influence. A coach at Chelsea leads a team of very young players into Europe and wins two medium-sized trophies, and effectively gets sacked for speaking out. Wilfried Nancy sees his reputation ruined while those individuals who hired him continue to make errors another day.

The Neoliberal Game: Responsibility Only for the Coaches

And possibly on some microcosmic level this is simply corporate governance at work: the elevation of a gilded overclass who are infallible, whose decisions are always sacrosanct, whose errors can invariably be sacked away without explanation. Hire the 3-4-3 coach only to dismiss them for using too much 3-4-3. Hire the project manager and then bin him for taking too long. And most importantly show gratitude; for your modest increases in ticket costs, for the latest player acquisitions, for the reality that the grownups – regardless of their expertise – remain in control.