🔗 Share this article

Tbecame clear he could survive losing against Grimsby. He weathered a decisive European final against a particularly poor Tottenham teams for many years. He could survive losing at home to West Ham and Wolves, a lowly league position, an unwavering system, undermining the team's most promising homegrown talent, the 32% win rate, calling the squad the poorest in Manchester United history. Yet, there existed a single opponent against whom Ruben Amorim would not be allowed to engage. You come at Jason Wilcox, and you best not miss.

Regrettably, similar to numerous top-flight defender in Blackburn’s championship campaign, the coach took on the executive and seems to have failed. The most distracted of readers can see the irony here: a manager who often railed his squad for failing in one-on-one duels crumbling when confronted by the intense pressure and formidable presence of a the Premier League’s most intimidating football executives.

In truth, this entire painful saga appears to portray the director in a whole new light. It may have been easy, given his nine months in a similar role at Southampton, to view him as merely a drudge in the United exoskeleton: an individual who owed his position as much 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 head coach, as he outmanoeuvred the unfortunate Dan Ashworth before him, he has demonstrated as one of football's true generals: a strategic mind that the club's competitors will now be rightly wary.

A Tactical Clash Regarding Formation and Philosophy

For example, it was the director who being involved in the leadership that hired the 3-4-3 fundamentalist the coach originally, was instrumental in attempting to convince Amorim to ditch his favored 3-4-3. Unsurprisingly, these pleas faced pushback. However, such directives hold greater authority when issued from the mouth with the impeccable football pedigree he possesses, holder of international appearances and a role in a title-winning side decades past.

Maybe eventually he may be persuaded to explain his thought processes to the rest of us. Maybe one day questions may arise regarding why the coach is walking away with a full payout, with no compensation reduction clause in place. But Jason Wilcox speaks rarely in public, for excellent reasons. The real thinkers in football – men like him – simply operate at a level beyond our own prosaic understanding. Were he to speak, most likely all we would hear would be ultrasonic blips and four-dimensional whirring. Wanting is not quite equivalent to being prepared to receive.

An Ultimate Authority Behind Command

Naturally, in training our focus on Jason Wilcox we overlook the true genius behind the club's current leadership. Jason Wilcox is, in reality, simply carrying out the commands of his ultimate line manager Sir Jim Ratcliffe, who in private has made very clear his preference for a back four. It is reported, the owner has also proposed playing Bryan Mbeumo as a right wing-back. Ratcliffe is keen for United to embrace data science and analytics. According to ESPN, in an executive meeting early in his investment, he declared that the team's approach of play “will be decided in this room”.

After all, Ratcliffe is a specialist in these intricate footballing stuff, leveraging his previous experience in petrochemicals and sailing. Above all he remains incredibly rich, and as we all know, the wealthy are the best of us: more perceptive, more wise, strategically brilliant, simply superior. Whom else could one trust to manage a strategic plan of cost-cutting, the building of a modern arena that appears similar to someone’s leftover knitting, the signing of Benjamin Sesko?

A Modern Soccer Hierarchy: Executives Over Managers

This is a trend that is becoming prevalent at the elite levels of the game. Historically, clubs foolishly entrusted major sporting choices to low-level employees like managers, talent spotters – even footballers. Perhaps it was once possible for an up-and-coming, visionary coach with a philosophy and drive to go into an organization and implement their plan through to completion. Yet how many companies have these guys established? How many mass redundancies have they managed? Far preferable to invest the real power where it rightly belongs: the leadership tier, the casually dressed executives, the individuals with impressive LinkedIn profiles. Better by far to decide the strategy in the boardroom and appoint someone who will adapt their offering to suit. If managers were once chefs, they have become more like Deliveroo drivers: not responsible for the product, yet ultimately answerable should it be delivered poorly or fails to meet standards.

In the meantime, their job has become not about crafting the philosophy and more about marketing it: the receptionist on the front desk, the visible figurehead of an organisation they have minimal power to change. A coach at Chelsea leads a team of literal children into the Champions League and wins two medium-sized trophies, and effectively is dismissed for speaking out. A manager at Celtic finds his standing damaged while the people who appointed him continue to make errors another day.

The Modern Corporate Football: Responsibility Only for the Few

And possibly in a small way this represents corporate governance at work: the elevation of a gilded overclass who are infallible, whose choices are always untouchable, whose errors can invariably be sacked away without justification. Hire the system coach only to fire them for playing excessively that system. Bring in the process guy and then discard him for taking excessive time. And above all be grateful; for your modest season ticket price rises, for your new summer signings, for the reality that the grownups – however well qualified – remain in control.