🔗 Share this article

Itbecame clear Ruben Amorim endured a loss to Grimsby. He weathered losing a crucial continental showpiece versus a particularly poor Tottenham teams in living memory. He could survive home defeats against West Ham and Wolves, a lowly league position, the tactical inflexibility, undermining the team's most promising homegrown talent, the 32% win rate, calling his team the worst in Manchester United history. But there was a single opponent against whom Ruben Amorim would not be allowed to tango. You come at the sporting director, you had better succeed.

Unfortunately, similar to numerous top-flight defender during Blackburn Rovers' title-winning campaign, Amorim came at Jason Wilcox and seems to have failed. Even the most distracted of readers can see the paradoxical situation: a coach who often railed his squad for failing in one-on-one duels succumbing in the face of the white heat and formidable presence of one of the Premier League’s most intimidating sporting directors.

In truth, this whole bruising episode appears to portray the director in a whole new light. Perhaps it might have been tempting, given his brief stint in a similar role at Southampton, to regard him as little more than a functionary within the club's structure: an individual who owed his position largely to his close relationship with ex-colleague Omar Berrada rather than any verifiable talent. How mistaken we all were. In brilliantly outmanoeuvring United’s feted manager, just as he bested the hapless Dan Ashworth before him, Jason Wilcox has demonstrated as one of football's true generals: a strategic mind that United’s mid-table rivals will now be rightly wary.

A Tactical Conflict Over Formation and Ideology

For example, it was the director who being involved in the leadership that appointed the rigid 3-4-3 advocate Amorim originally, played a key role in attempting to convince Amorim to abandon his favored 3-4-3. Naturally, these entreaties were resisted. However, such directives carry more weight when issued by a man with the impeccable soccer background of Jason Wilcox, a veteran of three England caps and a role in a title-winning side decades past.

Maybe eventually Jason Wilcox might agree to explain his thought processes publicly. Maybe one day he might be asked why Amorim is departing with full compensation, without any penalty clause in place. The director speaks rarely publicly, and with very good reason. The true intellectuals in football – individuals such as him – simply operate on a plane beyond our own mundane comprehension. Were he to speak, most likely we would perceive would be ultrasonic blips and four-dimensional whirring. Desiring an explanation is not the same as being prepared to comprehend it.

The Ultimate Authority In the Throne

But of course, by focusing our attention on Jason Wilcox we overlook the true genius behind the modern United throne. The director is, after all, merely executing the directives of his line manager Sir Jim Ratcliffe, who in private has emphasized his preference for a back four. It is reported, the owner has also suggested playing Bryan Mbeumo in a wing-back role. Ratcliffe is keen for United to adopt analytics and metrics. According to ESPN, during a leadership summit soon after his investment, he announced that United’s style to football “shall be determined in this room”.

After all, Sir Jim is a specialist in this technical footballing stuff, drawing from his previous experience in petrochemicals and sailing. Above all he is incredibly rich, and it is known, the wealthy are superior: more perceptive, sagacious, more tactically astute, simply better. Whom else would you trust to manage a strategic plan of cost-cutting, the construction of a new stadium that looks a lot like someone’s leftover knitting, the signing of a new striker?

The Modern Football Order: Executives Over Coaches

This is a trend that is becoming prevalent in top-tier of the game. Historically, clubs foolishly delegated big footballing decisions to subordinate staff like managers, scouts – even footballers. Maybe previously possible for a young, visionary coach with ideas and energy to go into a club and implement their plan through to completion. Yet how many companies have such individuals set up? How many mass redundancies have they managed? Better by far to invest the real power where it belongs: the executive class, the open-necked shirt brigade, the individuals with the jaw-dropping professional resumes. It is wiser to decide the tactics by the directors and hire a coach who will adapt their offering to suit. If managers were once chefs, they are now more akin to delivery personnel: not creating the product, but still ultimately answerable should it be delivered cold 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 on the front desk, the visible figurehead of an organisation they have minimal power to influence. A coach at Chelsea leads a team of very young players into the Champions League and wins two medium-sized trophies, and essentially gets sacked for speaking out. A manager at Celtic finds his reputation ruined while the people who hired him live to blunder indefinitely.

A Modern Corporate Football: Responsibility Only for the Few

And perhaps in a small way this is simply neoliberalism at work: the rise of a privileged overclass who can never be wrong, whose decisions are always untouchable, whose errors can invariably be sacked away without explanation. Appoint the 3-4-3 coach only to fire him for using too much that system. Bring in the process guy and later discard him for taking too long. And above all show gratitude; for your modest season ticket price rises, for the latest player acquisitions, for the reality that the adults – however well qualified – remain in control.