🔗 Share this article

Iturns out the manager could survive a loss to Grimsby. He weathered a decisive continental showpiece against a particularly poor Tottenham teams for many years. He withstood losing at home to West Ham and Wolves, finishing 15th, the tactical inflexibility, undermining some of the club’s best academy products, a poor winning percentage, labeling the squad the worst in Manchester United history. Yet, there existed a single opponent with whom Ruben Amorim was not permitted to tango. If you challenge the sporting director, and you best not miss.

Regrettably, similar to numerous Premiership right-back during Blackburn Rovers' title-winning campaign, Amorim took on the executive and seems to have failed. The most casual observer can see the irony here: a manager who often railed at his players for failing in individual battles succumbing in the face of the intense pressure and animal charisma of one of England's top division's most intimidating football executives.

And frankly, this entire bruising episode seems to paint the director in a whole new light. Perhaps it might have been easy, based on his brief stint in a similar role with the Saints, to view him as little more than a drudge within the club's structure: a man whose appointment was due as much to his close relationship with his former boss Omar Berrada as any demonstrable skill. How mistaken we all were. By masterfully outsmarting the club's celebrated head coach, as he outmanoeuvred the hapless Dan Ashworth before him, Jason Wilcox has proved himself as one of football's strategic masterminds: a tactical intellect of which the club's competitors are now rightly wary.

The Strategic Conflict Regarding Formation & Philosophy

To illustrate, this was the director who being involved in the leadership that hired the 3-4-3 fundamentalist the coach in the first place, was instrumental in trying to persuade Amorim to ditch his favored 3-4-3. Naturally, these pleas faced pushback. But perhaps these judgements carry more weight when delivered from the mouth with the impeccable soccer background he possesses, a veteran of three England caps and a role in a championship team decades past.

Perhaps in time he may be persuaded to outline his reasoning to the rest of us. Perhaps at some point he might be asked why Amorim is departing with a full payout, without any penalty clause in place. But Jason Wilcox seldom speaks publicly, for excellent reasons. The real thinkers in football – men like Jason Wilcox – simply operate at a level beyond our own mundane comprehension. Were he to speak, probably we would perceive is a series of ultrasonic blips and four-dimensional whirring. Desiring an explanation is not equivalent to being prepared to comprehend it.

An Supreme Power In Command

Naturally, by focusing our attention on the sporting director we overlook the real power behind the modern United throne. Jason Wilcox is, after all, merely executing the directives of his ultimate superior Sir Jim Ratcliffe, who in private has made very clear his preference for a four-man defense. According to reports, the owner has also proposed playing Bryan Mbeumo as a right wing-back. Ratcliffe is keen for United to embrace analytics and analytics. Per reports, during a leadership summit soon after his investment, he declared that United’s style to football “will be determined in this room”.

Ultimately, Ratcliffe is an expert in this technical footballing stuff, drawing from his background in petrochemicals and sailing. Above all he remains incredibly rich, and it is known, the rich are the best of us: more perceptive, more wise, strategically brilliant, simply superior. Who else would you trust to manage a strategic plan of austerity, the building of a new stadium that looks similar to an abstract design, the signing of a new striker?

A New Soccer Order: Directors Over Managers

This is a trend we are increasingly seeing at the elite levels of the game. For decades, clubs foolishly entrusted big footballing decisions to low-level employees such as coaches, talent spotters – players themselves. Perhaps it was once feasible for a young, visionary coach with ideas and drive to go into a club and implement their plan through to completion. Yet how many businesses have such individuals set up? What number of mass redundancies have they overseen? Better by far to invest genuine authority where it rightly belongs: the executive class, the open-necked shirt brigade, the guys with impressive professional resumes. It is wiser to decide the strategy in the boardroom and hire someone who will adapt their offering to suit. If managers were once chefs, they are now more like delivery personnel: not really responsible for the product, but still finally accountable if it arrives cold or fails of the box.

In the meantime, their job is increasingly less about defining the vision and more about marketing it: the front-facing representative of the operation, the public face of an organisation they have minimal power to influence. Enzo Maresca takes a squad of literal children into Europe and wins domestic cups, and effectively is dismissed for talking. A manager at Celtic sees his reputation ruined whereas the people who hired him continue to make errors another day.

A Neoliberal Game: Accountability for the Coaches

And perhaps on some microcosmic level this is simply neoliberalism in action: the rise of a privileged overclass who can never be wrong, whose choices are always sacrosanct, whose errors can invariably be resolved by sacking without explanation. Hire the 3-4-3 coach only to dismiss him for playing too much that system. Hire the process guy and later discard him for taking too long. And most importantly be grateful; for your modest increases in ticket costs, for the latest summer signings, for the fact that the grownups – regardless of their expertise – are in charge.