🔗 Share this article

Itranspired he endured losing against Grimsby. He weathered an important continental showpiece against one of the worst Tottenham teams for many years. He withstood home defeats against West Ham and Wolves, finishing 15th, his rigid approach, undermining the team's most promising academy products, the 32% win rate, labeling his team the worst the club has ever seen. But there was a single opponent with whom Ruben Amorim was not permitted to engage. You come at the sporting director, and you best not miss.

Unfortunately, like many a Premiership right-back in Blackburn’s title-winning campaign, the coach took on the executive and appears to have failed. Even the most casual observer will notice the irony here: a coach who frequently berated at his players for losing individual battles crumbling in the face of the intense pressure and formidable presence of one of England's top division's most feared football executives.

And frankly, this entire bruising episode appears to portray Jason Wilcox in a whole new light. Perhaps it might have been tempting, based on his nine months of experience with the Saints, to regard him as merely a drudge within the club's structure: a man whose appointment was due largely to his close relationship with his former boss Omar Berrada rather than any demonstrable skill. How wrong we all were. By masterfully outmanoeuvring the club's celebrated manager, as he outmanoeuvred the hapless Dan Ashworth earlier, Jason Wilcox has proved himself as one of football's true generals: a tactical intellect of which United’s mid-table rivals will now be justifiably concerned.

The Strategic Clash Regarding Formation & Ideology

For example, this was the director who having been part of the hierarchy that appointed the 3-4-3 fundamentalist the coach originally, played a key role in attempting to convince Amorim to ditch his favored formation. Naturally, these pleas were resisted. However, these judgements carry more weight when issued by a man of a man the unimpeachable football pedigree he possesses, a veteran of three England caps and a contributor to a championship team from 31 years ago.

Maybe eventually he might agree to explain his reasoning to the rest of us. Maybe one day he might be asked why Amorim is walking away with full compensation, with no compensation reduction clause in place. But Jason Wilcox speaks rarely publicly, for excellent reasons. The real thinkers in football – men like Jason Wilcox – simply operate on a plane exceeding our mundane comprehension. Were he to speak, probably all we would hear would be ultrasonic blips and complex calculations. Wanting is not the same as being ready to receive.

An Ultimate Power In the Throne

Naturally, in training our focus on Jason Wilcox we overlook the real power behind the modern United throne. The director is, after all, merely executing the commands of his ultimate line manager Sir Jim Ratcliffe, who privately has emphasized his desire for a back four. It is reported, the owner has also proposed deploying the forward in a wing-back role. The owner is eager for United to adopt data science and analytics. Per reports, during a leadership summit soon after his investment, he announced that United’s style to football “shall be determined by this group”.

After all, Sir Jim is a specialist in this technical football matters, drawing from his previous experience in petrochemicals and sailing. Most importantly he remains immensely wealthy, and as we all know, the rich are superior: more perceptive, sagacious, strategically brilliant, fundamentally superior. Whom else would you trust to manage a strategic plan of cost-cutting, the building of a modern arena that appears similar to someone’s leftover knitting, the acquisition of Benjamin Sesko?

A New Football Order: Executives Above Coaches

This is a trend we are increasingly seeing at the elite levels of the game. For decades, clubs foolishly entrusted major sporting choices to low-level employees like managers, scouts – even footballers. Perhaps it was once feasible for a young, visionary coach with a philosophy and drive to go into a club and see their vision through to completion. Yet how many companies have these guys established? What number of large-scale layoffs have they managed? Better by far to invest the real power where it belongs: the executive class, the open-necked shirt brigade, the guys with the jaw-dropping professional resumes. It is wiser to decide the strategy in the boardroom and appoint someone who will adapt their methods accordingly. If coaches were formerly chefs, they are now more akin to Deliveroo drivers: not really responsible for the food, but still ultimately answerable if it arrives poorly or fails of the box.

Nowadays, their job has become less about defining the vision and more about marketing it: the receptionist of the operation, the public face for a club they can do little to change. A coach at Chelsea leads a team of literal children into Europe and secures two medium-sized trophies, and effectively is dismissed for talking. Wilfried Nancy finds his standing damaged while the people who appointed him live to blunder indefinitely.

The Modern Corporate Football: Accountability for the Few

And possibly on some microcosmic level this is simply neoliberalism in action: the rise of a gilded elite who can never be wrong, whose decisions remain sacrosanct, whose errors can invariably be resolved by sacking without explanation. Hire the 3-4-3 coach only to dismiss them for playing too much that system. Hire the project manager and then discard them for taking too long. And above all be grateful; for your modest increases in ticket costs, for the latest summer signings, for the reality that the adults – however well qualified – are in charge.