🔗 Share this article

Itbecame clear the manager could survive losing against lower-league opposition. Survive an important continental showpiece versus a particularly poor Spurs sides for many years. He withstood losing at home to domestic rivals, a lowly league position, his rigid approach, undermining the team's best academy products, a poor winning percentage, labeling his team the poorest in Manchester United history. Yet, there existed one adversary against whom Ruben Amorim was not permitted to tango. You come at Jason Wilcox, and you best not miss.

Regrettably, similar to numerous Premiership right-back in Blackburn’s championship campaign, the coach took on the executive and appears to have failed. The most distracted of readers will notice the paradoxical situation: a manager who often railed at his players for losing individual battles crumbling when confronted by the intense pressure and formidable presence of one of the Premier League’s most intimidating football executives.

In truth, this entire painful saga seems to paint Jason Wilcox in a whole new light. Perhaps it might have been tempting, given his nine months in a similar role with the Saints, to regard Jason Wilcox as merely a drudge within the club's structure: an individual who owed his position as much to his friendship with his former boss Omar Berrada as any verifiable talent. How wrong everyone was. In brilliantly outsmarting United’s feted manager, just as he bested the unfortunate Dan Ashworth earlier, he has demonstrated as one of football's true generals: a strategic mind of which United’s mid-table rivals will now be rightly wary.

The Strategic Clash Over Formation and Ideology

To illustrate, it was the director who being involved in the hierarchy that hired the rigid 3-4-3 advocate Amorim in the first place, played a key role in trying to persuade Amorim to abandon his favored formation. Unsurprisingly, these entreaties met a certain resistance. But perhaps such directives hold greater authority when issued from the mouth with the unimpeachable soccer background he possesses, a veteran of international appearances and a contributor to a championship team decades past.

Maybe eventually Jason Wilcox might agree to outline his reasoning publicly. Perhaps at some point he might be asked why Amorim is walking away with full compensation, with no penalty clause activated. The director seldom speaks publicly, for excellent reasons. The true intellectuals in football – men like him – simply operate on a plane beyond our own prosaic understanding. Were he to speak, most likely we would perceive is a series of ultrasonic blips and four-dimensional whirring. Wanting is not the same as being prepared to receive.

The Supreme Authority In Command

But of course, by focusing our attention on Jason Wilcox we are obscuring the true genius behind the club's current leadership. Jason Wilcox is, in reality, simply carrying out the directives of his ultimate line manager the billionaire owner, who privately has emphasized his desire for a back four. It is reported, Ratcliffe has also proposed deploying the forward in a wing-back role. The owner is eager for United to embrace data science and analytics. According to ESPN, during a leadership summit soon after his minority ownership, he announced that the team's approach to football “shall be determined in this room”.

Ultimately, Sir Jim is an expert in this technical footballing stuff, leveraging his previous experience in industry and sailing. Above all he is immensely wealthy, and it is known, the wealthy are the best of us: more insightful, more wise, strategically brilliant, fundamentally better. Who else could one trust to oversee an enlightened programme of austerity, the building of a new stadium that appears similar to an abstract design, the signing of Benjamin Sesko?

A Modern Football Hierarchy: Directors Above Coaches

This represents a shift that is becoming prevalent in top-tier of the game. For decades, teams mistakenly entrusted big footballing decisions to subordinate staff like managers, talent spotters – players themselves. Maybe previously possible for a young, innovative manager with a philosophy and drive to go into an organization and see their vision through to completion. But how many companies have such individuals set up? What number of mass redundancies have they managed? Better by far to invest the real power where it rightly belongs: the leadership tier, the open-necked shirt brigade, the individuals with impressive professional resumes. Better by far to determine the tactics by the directors and hire someone who can tailor their offering accordingly. If managers were formerly chefs, they have become more like delivery personnel: not really responsible for the food, but still finally accountable if it arrives cold or leaks out of the box.

Nowadays, their job has become not about defining the vision and more about marketing it: the receptionist of the operation, the visible figurehead of an organisation they can do little to influence. Enzo Maresca leads a team of very young players into Europe and secures two medium-sized trophies, and essentially is dismissed for talking. A manager at Celtic finds his reputation ruined while those individuals who hired him live to blunder another day.

The Modern Corporate Football: Responsibility for the Coaches

And perhaps in a small way this represents neoliberalism in action: the elevation of a gilded overclass who can never be wrong, whose choices remain sacrosanct, whose mistakes can invariably be sacked away without explanation. Hire the 3-4-3 coach only to dismiss them for using excessively that system. Hire the project manager and then bin them for taking excessive time. And most importantly be grateful; for the incremental season ticket price rises, for your new summer signings, for the fact that the grownups – however well qualified – remain in control.