🔗 Share this article

Turns out Ruben Amorim was able to withstand a loss to lower-league opposition. Survive a decisive European final versus one of the worst Spurs sides for many years. He withstood losing at home to West Ham and Wolves, a lowly league position, his rigid approach, undermining some of the club’s best academy products, the 32% win rate, calling the squad the poorest the club has ever seen. Yet, there existed a single opponent against whom Ruben Amorim would not be allowed to engage. If you challenge the sporting director, and you best not miss.

Regrettably, like many a top-flight defender during Blackburn Rovers' championship 1994-95 season, the coach came at Jason Wilcox and appears to have missed. The most casual observer will notice the paradoxical situation: a manager who frequently berated at his players for failing in one-on-one duels succumbing in the face of the white heat and formidable presence of a the Premier League’s most feared football executives.

In truth, this whole painful saga seems to paint Jason Wilcox in a whole new light. It may have been easy, given his brief stint in a similar role at Southampton, to view him as little more than a functionary within the club's structure: a man whose appointment was due largely to his close relationship with his former boss Omar Berrada as any demonstrable skill. How wrong we all were. In brilliantly outsmarting United’s feted manager, as he outmanoeuvred the hapless Dan Ashworth earlier, Jason Wilcox has demonstrated as one of football's strategic masterminds: a tactical intellect that the club's mid-table rivals will now be rightly wary.

The Strategic Conflict Over Formation and Philosophy

For example, this was the director who being involved in the leadership that hired the 3-4-3 fundamentalist the coach in the first place, played a key role in attempting to convince Amorim to ditch his favored 3-4-3. Unsurprisingly, these pleas met a certain resistance. But perhaps such directives carry more weight when issued by a man with the unimpeachable football pedigree he possesses, a veteran of international appearances and a contributor to a championship team from 31 years ago.

Perhaps in time he might agree to explain his thought processes to the rest of us. Maybe one day questions may arise regarding why the coach is walking away with full compensation, without any penalty clause in place. The director speaks rarely publicly, for excellent reasons. The true intellectuals in football – men like Jason Wilcox – simply operate at a level exceeding our mundane comprehension. Were he to speak, probably all we would hear would be ultrasonic blips and four-dimensional whirring. Wanting is not quite equivalent to being prepared to receive.

An Supreme Power Behind Command

But of course, by focusing our attention on Jason Wilcox we overlook the real power behind the modern United throne. The director is, after all, merely executing the directives of his superior the billionaire owner, who privately has made very clear his desire for a four-man defense. It is reported, the owner has also suggested playing Bryan Mbeumo in a wing-back role. The owner is eager for United to adopt analytics and analytics. According to ESPN, in an executive meeting soon after his investment, he announced that the team's approach to football “will be determined by this group”.

After all, Sir Jim is a specialist in these intricate football matters, drawing from his previous experience in petrochemicals and sailing. Above all he is immensely wealthy, and it is known, the rich are superior: more perceptive, more wise, more tactically astute, fundamentally better. Whom else would you trust to oversee an enlightened programme of austerity, the building of a new stadium that looks a lot like someone’s leftover knitting, the acquisition of a new striker?

A Modern Football Order: Directors Over Managers

This represents a shift that is becoming prevalent in top-tier of the game. For decades, teams mistakenly delegated big footballing decisions to subordinate staff such as coaches, talent spotters – players themselves. Perhaps it was once feasible for a young, visionary coach with a philosophy and energy to join a club and implement their plan through to completion. But how many companies have such individuals set up? What number of mass redundancies have they overseen? Far preferable to place the real power where it belongs: the executive class, the open-necked shirt brigade, the individuals with the jaw-dropping LinkedIn profiles. It is wiser to determine the tactics in the boardroom and appoint someone who will adapt their offering accordingly. If managers were formerly chefs, they are now more akin to Deliveroo drivers: not really responsible for the food, but still finally accountable should it be delivered poorly or fails of the box.

In the meantime, a coach's role has become less about defining the vision and more about selling it: the front-facing representative on the front desk, the visible figurehead of an organisation they can do little to change. Enzo Maresca takes a squad of literal children into Europe and wins domestic cups, and effectively is dismissed for talking. Wilfried Nancy finds his reputation ruined while the people who appointed him live to blunder indefinitely.

The Modern Corporate Game: Accountability Only for the Coaches

And perhaps on some microcosmic level this represents neoliberalism in action: the rise of a privileged overclass who are infallible, whose decisions remain sacrosanct, whose mistakes can always be sacked away without explanation. Hire the 3-4-3 coach and then dismiss them for playing excessively 3-4-3. Bring in the project manager and then discard them for taking excessive time. And above all be grateful; for your modest increases in ticket costs, for your new player acquisitions, for the reality that the adults – however well qualified – are in charge.