🔗 Share this article

Turns out he could survive a loss to lower-league opposition. Survive losing a crucial continental showpiece versus a particularly poor Spurs sides in living memory. He could survive losing at home against domestic rivals, a lowly league position, an unwavering system, laying waste to the team's most promising homegrown talent, a poor winning percentage, labeling his team the poorest in Manchester United history. But there was one adversary with whom Ruben Amorim was not permitted to dance. You come at the sporting director, you had better succeed.

Regrettably, like many a top-flight right-back during Blackburn Rovers' title-winning campaign, Amorim came at Jason Wilcox and appears to have missed. The most distracted of readers will notice the paradoxical situation: a manager who often railed at his players for losing one-on-one duels crumbling in the face of the white heat and animal charisma of a the Premier League’s most intimidating sporting directors.

And frankly, this whole painful saga seems to paint Jason Wilcox in a different perspective. It may have been tempting, given his brief stint of experience with the Saints, to view him as little more than a drudge within the club's structure: a man who owed his position largely to his friendship with his former boss Omar Berrada rather than any demonstrable skill. How wrong everyone was. In brilliantly outmanoeuvring United’s feted manager, as he outmanoeuvred the unfortunate Dan Ashworth before him, Jason Wilcox has demonstrated to be among football's strategic masterminds: a strategic mind of which the club's mid-table rivals will now be justifiably concerned.

A Strategic Conflict Regarding Formation & Philosophy

For example, this was the director who being involved in the leadership that hired the rigid 3-4-3 advocate Amorim originally, played a key role in attempting to convince Amorim to abandon his favored formation. Naturally, these pleas met a certain resistance. However, these judgements carry more weight when delivered by a man with the unimpeachable football pedigree he possesses, a veteran of international appearances and a role in a title-winning side from 31 years ago.

Perhaps in time Jason Wilcox may be persuaded to explain his reasoning publicly. Perhaps at some point he might be asked why Amorim is walking away with full compensation, without any compensation reduction clause in place. The director seldom speaks in public, for excellent reasons. The true intellectuals of this sport – individuals such as him – function at a level beyond our own prosaic understanding. If he ever did speak, most likely all we would hear would be high-frequency signals and four-dimensional whirring. Wanting is not quite equivalent to being prepared to receive.

The Ultimate Power In Command

But of course, by focusing our attention on the sporting director we are obscuring the true genius behind the club's current leadership. Jason Wilcox is, in reality, simply carrying out the commands of his ultimate superior Sir Jim Ratcliffe, who in private has emphasized his preference for a four-man defense. It is reported, the owner has also proposed deploying the forward as a right wing-back. The owner is eager for United to embrace data science and analytics. Per reports, during a leadership summit soon after his minority ownership, he declared that the team's approach to football “will be determined in this room”.

After all, Sir Jim is an expert in this technical football matters, drawing from his previous experience in industry and yachting. Most importantly he is immensely wealthy, and as we all know, the wealthy are superior: more insightful, sagacious, more tactically astute, simply better. Whom else would you trust to oversee an enlightened programme of cost-cutting, the construction of a new stadium that appears a lot like an abstract design, the signing of Benjamin Sesko?

A New Soccer Hierarchy: Directors Over Coaches

This is a trend we are increasingly seeing in top-tier football. Historically, teams mistakenly delegated major sporting choices to low-level employees such as coaches, scouts – players themselves. Perhaps it was once possible for a young, visionary coach with a philosophy and energy to go into an organization and implement their plan supported to fruition. Yet how many businesses have such individuals set up? How many large-scale layoffs have they managed? Far preferable to place genuine authority where it belongs: the leadership tier, the casually dressed executives, the individuals with the jaw-dropping professional resumes. Better by far to decide the tactics by the directors and hire someone who can tailor their methods to suit. If managers were formerly chefs, they are now more akin to delivery personnel: not really creating the product, yet finally accountable should it be delivered poorly or fails of the box.

In the meantime, their job has become not about crafting the philosophy and more about selling it: the front-facing representative of the operation, the public face for a club they have minimal power to influence. Enzo Maresca takes a squad of literal children into Europe and wins domestic cups, and essentially is dismissed for speaking out. Wilfried Nancy sees his standing damaged while the people who hired him live to blunder indefinitely.

The Modern Corporate Game: Accountability for the Coaches

And perhaps in a small way this represents neoliberalism in action: the rise of a privileged elite who can never be wrong, whose decisions are always sacrosanct, whose errors can always be sacked away without justification. Hire the system coach and then fire them for using excessively that system. Hire the project manager and later discard them for requiring excessive time. And above all be grateful; for your modest increases in ticket costs, for the latest player acquisitions, for the reality that the grownups – however well qualified – remain in control.