🔗 Share this article

Iturns out he was able to withstand defeat by lower-league opposition. Survive a decisive European final versus one of the worst Spurs sides in living memory. He could survive losing at home to West Ham and Wolves, a lowly league position, his rigid approach, undermining the team's best academy products, the 32% win rate, calling his team the worst in Manchester United history. But there was one adversary against whom the Portuguese coach would not be allowed to engage. If you challenge Jason Wilcox, and you best not miss.

Regrettably, similar to numerous top-flight right-back in Blackburn’s title-winning 1994-95 season, Amorim came at the executive and seems to have missed. Even the most casual observer will notice the irony here: a manager who often railed his squad for failing in individual battles crumbling in the face of the white heat and formidable presence of one of England's top division's most intimidating sporting directors.

In truth, this entire painful saga seems to paint Jason Wilcox in a whole new light. It may have been easy, given his nine months in a similar role with the Saints, to view him as merely a functionary in the United exoskeleton: a man who owed his position as much to his close relationship with ex-colleague Omar Berrada as any demonstrable skill. How wrong everyone was. In brilliantly outsmarting United’s feted manager, just as he bested the unfortunate a previous executive earlier, Jason Wilcox has demonstrated as one of the sport’s strategic masterminds: a strategic mind that the club's mid-table rivals are now rightly wary.

The Strategic Clash Regarding Formation & Philosophy

For example, this was Jason Wilcox who having been part of the hierarchy that hired the rigid 3-4-3 advocate the coach originally, was instrumental in attempting to convince Amorim to abandon his beloved formation. Unsurprisingly, these entreaties met a certain resistance. However, these judgements hold greater authority when delivered from the mouth of a man the unimpeachable soccer background of Jason Wilcox, holder of international appearances and a contributor to a championship team decades past.

Perhaps in time Jason Wilcox might agree to outline his reasoning to the rest of us. Maybe one day he might be asked why Amorim is walking away with full compensation, without any compensation reduction clause in place. The director speaks rarely in public, for excellent reasons. The true intellectuals in football – individuals such as him – function on a plane beyond our own prosaic understanding. 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.

The Supreme Power Behind the Throne

Naturally, in training our focus on the sporting director we are obscuring the true genius behind the club's current leadership. Jason Wilcox is, in reality, merely executing the commands of his ultimate line manager the billionaire owner, who privately has made very clear his desire for a four-man defense. It is reported, Ratcliffe has also proposed deploying the forward in a wing-back role. The owner is eager for the club to adopt analytics and metrics. Per reports, in an executive meeting soon after his investment, he announced that United’s style of play “will be decided by this group”.

Ultimately, Ratcliffe is an expert in this technical football matters, drawing from his previous experience in industry and yachting. Above all he is immensely wealthy, and as we all know, the rich are superior: more insightful, sagacious, more tactically astute, simply better. Whom else would you trust to manage an enlightened programme of austerity, the building of a modern arena that looks similar to an abstract design, the signing of a new striker?

A Modern Football Hierarchy: Executives Over Managers

This is a trend we are increasingly seeing at the elite levels football. For decades, teams mistakenly delegated big footballing decisions to subordinate staff such as coaches, scouts – players themselves. Maybe previously feasible for a young, innovative manager with ideas and energy to go into an organization and implement their plan supported to fruition. But how many businesses have such individuals established? What number of large-scale layoffs have they managed? Far preferable to invest genuine authority where it belongs: the executive class, the open-necked shirt brigade, the guys with the jaw-dropping LinkedIn profiles. Better by far to determine the strategy by the directors and hire someone who will adapt their offering accordingly. If managers were once chefs, they are now more akin to Deliveroo drivers: not really responsible for the food, yet finally accountable if it arrives poorly or fails to meet standards.

In the meantime, their job has become not about crafting the philosophy and more about selling it: the front-facing representative on the front desk, the visible figurehead of an organisation they have minimal power to change. Enzo Maresca takes a squad of literal children into Europe and wins two medium-sized trophies, and essentially is dismissed for speaking out. A manager at Celtic finds his reputation ruined while the people who appointed him live to blunder another day.

The Modern Corporate Game: Responsibility for the Coaches

And possibly on some microcosmic level this is simply neoliberalism at work: 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 system coach only to fire him for playing too much that system. Hire the process guy and later discard him for taking excessive time. And most importantly be grateful; for your modest season ticket price rises, for your new summer signings, for the fact that the grownups – regardless of their expertise – remain in control.