🔗 Share this article

Turns out he was able to withstand losing against Grimsby. He weathered a decisive European final versus a particularly poor Tottenham teams for many years. He withstood home defeats against domestic rivals, finishing 15th, an unwavering system, laying waste to the team's best academy products, a poor winning percentage, calling the squad the poorest the club has ever seen. But there was a single opponent with whom Ruben Amorim would not be allowed to dance. If you challenge Jason Wilcox, you had better succeed.

Regrettably, like many a Premiership defender in Blackburn’s title-winning 1994-95 season, Amorim took on Jason Wilcox and appears to have missed. The most distracted of readers will notice the paradoxical situation: a coach who often railed his squad for losing individual battles crumbling when confronted by the intense pressure and animal charisma of one of England's top division's most intimidating sporting directors.

And frankly, this whole bruising episode appears to portray Jason Wilcox in a whole new light. It may have been easy, based on his nine months of experience at Southampton, to regard him as merely a functionary within the club's structure: an individual whose appointment was due largely to his close relationship with his former boss a fellow executive as any demonstrable skill. How mistaken everyone was. By masterfully outmanoeuvring United’s feted head coach, just as he bested the unfortunate Dan Ashworth earlier, he has demonstrated as one of the sport’s true generals: a strategic mind of which the club's competitors will now be rightly wary.

A Strategic Clash Over System & Philosophy

For example, this was Jason Wilcox who having been part of the hierarchy that hired the rigid 3-4-3 advocate Amorim originally, was instrumental in trying to persuade Amorim to abandon his beloved 3-4-3. Unsurprisingly, these pleas were resisted. But perhaps such directives hold greater authority when delivered from the mouth of a man the impeccable football pedigree he possesses, holder of international appearances and a role in a championship team from 31 years ago.

Perhaps in time Jason Wilcox might agree to outline his thought processes to the rest of us. Maybe one day he might be asked regarding why the coach is walking away with full compensation, with no compensation reduction clause activated. The director speaks rarely in public, for excellent reasons. The real thinkers of this sport – individuals such as Jason Wilcox – simply operate at a level exceeding our prosaic understanding. Were he to speak, most likely we would perceive would be high-frequency signals and four-dimensional whirring. Desiring an explanation is not equivalent to being ready to comprehend it.

An Ultimate Authority Behind Command

Naturally, in training our focus on the sporting director we overlook the real power behind the modern United throne. The director is, after all, simply carrying out the directives of his ultimate superior Sir Jim Ratcliffe, who in private has made very clear his desire for a back four. According to reports, the owner has also proposed deploying the forward in a wing-back role. The owner is eager for United to adopt data science and metrics. Per reports, during a leadership summit soon after his investment, he declared that the team's approach to football “shall be determined by this group”.

After all, Ratcliffe is a specialist in these intricate footballing stuff, leveraging his previous experience in petrochemicals and yachting. Most importantly he is immensely wealthy, and it is known, the wealthy are superior: more insightful, sagacious, more tactically astute, fundamentally better. Who else could one trust to manage an enlightened programme of cost-cutting, the building of a new stadium that looks a lot like an abstract design, the acquisition of a new striker?

The Modern Football Hierarchy: Directors Above Managers

This represents a shift that is becoming prevalent in top-tier football. For decades, clubs foolishly delegated major sporting choices to subordinate staff such as coaches, talent spotters – players themselves. Maybe previously possible for a young, innovative manager with ideas and drive to go into a club and implement their plan supported to fruition. But how many businesses have these guys established? What number of mass redundancies have they managed? Far preferable to place the real power where it belongs: the executive class, the casually dressed executives, the individuals with the jaw-dropping LinkedIn profiles. It is wiser to decide the strategy by the directors and appoint a coach who can tailor their methods to suit. If coaches were once chefs, they have become more akin to delivery personnel: not creating the food, yet ultimately answerable if it arrives poorly or leaks out of the box.

In the meantime, their job has become not about defining the vision and more about marketing it: the receptionist of the operation, the public face of an organisation they can do little to change. A coach at Chelsea takes a squad of very young players into the Champions League and wins domestic cups, and essentially gets sacked for talking. Wilfried Nancy sees his reputation ruined while those individuals who hired him live to blunder indefinitely.

The Modern Corporate Football: Accountability Only for the Coaches

And perhaps in a small way this represents corporate governance at work: the rise of a privileged overclass who can never be wrong, whose choices remain sacrosanct, whose errors can always be sacked away without justification. Appoint the 3-4-3 coach and then dismiss them for using too much 3-4-3. Hire the project manager and then bin him for taking excessive time. And above all be grateful; for your modest increases in ticket costs, for your new summer signings, for the fact that the grownups – however well qualified – are in charge.