🔗 Share this article

Turns out he endured a loss to Grimsby. Survive an important European final against one of the worst Spurs sides for many years. He withstood home defeats against domestic rivals, finishing 15th, his rigid approach, laying waste to some of the club’s best academy products, a poor winning percentage, calling his team the worst the club has ever seen. Yet, there existed one adversary against whom Ruben Amorim was not permitted to tango. You come at Jason Wilcox, you had better succeed.

Unfortunately, like many a top-flight defender during Blackburn Rovers' title-winning 1994-95 season, Amorim came at the executive and seems to have missed. The most distracted of readers will notice the irony here: a coach who often railed at his players for failing in individual battles crumbling when confronted by the white heat and formidable presence of one of England's top division's most intimidating sporting directors.

And frankly, this whole bruising episode appears to portray the director in a whole new light. Perhaps it might have been tempting, given his nine months of experience with the Saints, to regard Jason Wilcox as little more than a functionary within the club's structure: a man whose appointment was due largely to his close relationship with ex-colleague Omar Berrada rather than any verifiable talent. How mistaken everyone was. By masterfully outmanoeuvring the club's celebrated manager, just as he bested the unfortunate Dan Ashworth before him, he has proved himself to be among football's strategic masterminds: a tactical intellect of which the club's competitors will now be justifiably concerned.

A Strategic Conflict Regarding Formation & Ideology

To illustrate, it was the director who having been part of the hierarchy that hired the 3-4-3 fundamentalist the coach in the first place, was instrumental in attempting to convince him to ditch his beloved formation. Unsurprisingly, these pleas were resisted. However, such directives carry more weight when delivered by a man of a man the impeccable football pedigree of Jason Wilcox, holder of three England caps and a role in a title-winning side decades past.

Perhaps in time Jason Wilcox may be persuaded to explain his thought processes to the rest of us. Perhaps at some point he might be asked regarding why the coach is walking away with a full payout, without any compensation reduction clause activated. The director speaks rarely publicly, for excellent reasons. The real thinkers of this sport – men like Jason Wilcox – function on a plane beyond our own mundane comprehension. If he ever did speak, probably all we would hear would be ultrasonic blips and complex calculations. Wanting is not quite the same as being prepared to receive.

The Ultimate Authority Behind the Throne

But of course, in training our focus on Jason Wilcox we overlook the true genius behind the club's current leadership. The director is, in reality, simply carrying out the commands of his superior Sir Jim Ratcliffe, who privately has emphasized his preference for a four-man defense. According to reports, Ratcliffe has also proposed playing Bryan Mbeumo as a right wing-back. Ratcliffe is keen for United to adopt data science and metrics. Per reports, during a leadership summit soon after his minority ownership, he announced that United’s style of play “shall be determined in this room”.

After all, Ratcliffe is a specialist in these intricate football matters, leveraging his background in petrochemicals and sailing. Above all he remains incredibly rich, and as we all know, the rich are the best of us: more perceptive, sagacious, strategically brilliant, simply better. Whom else would you trust to manage an enlightened programme of austerity, the construction of a modern arena that looks a lot like an abstract design, the acquisition of a new striker?

The Modern Soccer Order: Executives Above Coaches

This represents a shift that is becoming prevalent at the elite levels of the game. Historically, clubs foolishly delegated major sporting choices to subordinate staff such as coaches, talent spotters – players themselves. Maybe previously feasible for a young, visionary coach with a philosophy and energy to go into an organization and see their vision through to completion. But how many companies have such individuals established? What number of mass redundancies have they managed? Far preferable to place the real power where it rightly belongs: the leadership tier, the casually dressed executives, the individuals with impressive LinkedIn profiles. It is wiser to determine the tactics by the directors and hire a coach who can tailor their offering to suit. If managers were once chefs, they are now more akin to Deliveroo drivers: not really creating the food, yet ultimately answerable if it arrives cold or leaks out of the box.

In the meantime, their job is increasingly not about crafting the philosophy and more about marketing it: the front-facing representative on the front desk, the public face for a club they have minimal power to change. Enzo Maresca takes a squad of very young players into the Champions League and secures two medium-sized trophies, and effectively is dismissed for talking. A manager at Celtic sees his reputation ruined whereas those individuals who appointed him continue to make errors indefinitely.

A Neoliberal Game: Responsibility Only for the Coaches

And perhaps in a small way this represents corporate governance at work: the elevation of a gilded elite who can never be wrong, whose decisions remain sacrosanct, whose errors can invariably be resolved by sacking without justification. Hire the 3-4-3 coach and then dismiss them for using excessively that system. Hire the project manager and then bin them for taking too long. And above all be grateful; for the incremental season ticket price rises, for the latest summer signings, for the fact that the grownups – regardless of their expertise – are in charge.