🔗 Share this article

Itranspired Ruben Amorim was able to withstand losing against lower-league opposition. Survive an important European final versus a particularly poor Spurs sides in living memory. He could survive losing at home against domestic rivals, a lowly league position, his rigid approach, laying waste to the team's best academy products, the 32% win rate, calling the squad the poorest the club has ever seen. Yet, there existed one adversary with whom the Portuguese coach was not permitted to engage. You come at Jason Wilcox, and you best not miss.

Unfortunately, like many a top-flight defender in Blackburn’s title-winning 1994-95 season, the coach took on the executive and seems to have failed. The most casual observer can see the irony here: a coach who often railed at his players for losing individual battles crumbling when confronted by the white heat and animal charisma of one of England's top division's most intimidating football executives.

And frankly, this whole bruising episode appears to portray the director in a different perspective. Perhaps it might have been easy, based on his brief stint of experience with the Saints, to view him as little more than a functionary within the club's structure: an individual who owed his position largely to his close relationship with his former boss a fellow executive rather than any demonstrable skill. How wrong everyone was. In brilliantly outmanoeuvring United’s feted head coach, just as he bested the unfortunate a previous executive before him, he has proved himself as one of football's true generals: a tactical intellect of which the club's competitors will now be rightly wary.

A Strategic Clash Regarding System and Ideology

For example, this was Jason Wilcox , after being involved in the hierarchy that appointed the rigid 3-4-3 advocate Amorim originally, was instrumental in attempting to convince him to abandon his favored 3-4-3. Naturally, these entreaties faced pushback. But perhaps such directives hold greater authority when delivered by a man with the impeccable football pedigree of Jason Wilcox, holder of international appearances and a contributor to a championship team decades past.

Perhaps in time he might agree to explain his thought processes to the rest of us. Maybe one day he might be asked why Amorim is departing with full compensation, with no penalty clause activated. But Jason Wilcox seldom speaks publicly, and with very good reason. The true intellectuals of this sport – men like him – function at a level beyond our own mundane comprehension. Were he to speak, probably we would perceive would be high-frequency signals and four-dimensional whirring. Wanting is not the same as being ready to comprehend it.

An Ultimate Authority Behind the Throne

Naturally, in training our focus on Jason Wilcox we overlook the real power behind the club's current leadership. The director is, after all, simply carrying out the directives of his superior Sir Jim Ratcliffe, who in private has made very clear his preference for a four-man defense. According to reports, Ratcliffe has also proposed deploying the forward in a wing-back role. Ratcliffe is keen for the club to embrace data science and analytics. Per reports, in an executive meeting soon after his minority ownership, he announced that United’s style of play “will be determined in this room”.

After all, Sir Jim is an expert in this technical football matters, drawing from his previous experience in petrochemicals and yachting. Most importantly he is incredibly rich, and it is known, the wealthy are superior: more perceptive, sagacious, more tactically astute, simply superior. Whom else would you trust to oversee an enlightened programme of austerity, the building of a modern arena that appears a lot like someone’s leftover knitting, the signing of Benjamin Sesko?

A New Football Hierarchy: Executives Over Coaches

This represents a shift that is becoming prevalent at the elite levels of the game. Historically, clubs foolishly entrusted major sporting choices to low-level employees such as coaches, talent spotters – players themselves. Maybe previously feasible for an up-and-coming, innovative manager with a philosophy and energy to go into an organization and implement their plan supported to fruition. But how many companies have these guys established? What number of mass redundancies have they overseen? Better by far to invest genuine authority where it belongs: the leadership tier, the casually dressed executives, the individuals with the jaw-dropping professional resumes. It is wiser to determine the strategy in the boardroom and appoint someone who can tailor their offering to suit. If managers were formerly chefs, they are now more akin to Deliveroo drivers: not really responsible for the food, yet ultimately answerable should it be delivered cold or leaks out of the box.

Nowadays, their job has become not about defining the vision and more about selling it: the receptionist on the front desk, the public face for a club they have minimal power to change. Enzo Maresca takes a squad of literal children into Europe and wins two medium-sized trophies, and effectively gets sacked for speaking out. Wilfried Nancy sees his reputation ruined while those individuals who hired him live to blunder indefinitely.

A Neoliberal Football: Accountability for the Few

And perhaps on some microcosmic level this is simply neoliberalism in action: the elevation of a privileged overclass who are infallible, whose choices remain untouchable, whose mistakes can invariably be resolved by sacking without explanation. Hire the 3-4-3 coach only to dismiss them for using excessively 3-4-3. Hire the process guy and later discard him for taking too long. And most importantly be grateful; for the incremental increases in ticket costs, for the latest summer signings, for the reality that the adults – however well qualified – are in charge.