🔗 Share this article

Turns out the manager endured losing against lower-league opposition. Survive losing a crucial continental showpiece versus a particularly poor Tottenham teams in living memory. He withstood home defeats to domestic rivals, finishing 15th, an unwavering system, laying waste to some of the club’s best homegrown talent, a poor winning percentage, calling his team the poorest the club has ever seen. Yet, there existed a single opponent against whom Ruben Amorim was not permitted to dance. If you challenge Jason Wilcox, and you best not miss.

Unfortunately, like many a top-flight right-back in Blackburn’s championship campaign, the coach came at the executive and seems to have missed. Even the most distracted of readers can see the paradoxical situation: a manager who frequently berated at his players for failing in individual battles succumbing in the face of the intense pressure and formidable presence of one of England's top division's most intimidating sporting directors.

In truth, this entire bruising episode appears to portray the director in a different perspective. It may have been easy, based on his nine months of experience with the Saints, to view Jason Wilcox as merely a functionary in the United exoskeleton: an individual who owed his position largely to his friendship with ex-colleague Omar Berrada as any verifiable talent. How wrong we all were. In brilliantly outsmarting the club's celebrated head coach, as he outmanoeuvred the hapless Dan Ashworth before him, he has proved himself to be among football's strategic masterminds: a tactical intellect of which United’s mid-table rivals are now rightly wary.

The Strategic Conflict Regarding Formation & Philosophy

For example, this was Jason Wilcox who being involved in the leadership that appointed the rigid 3-4-3 advocate the coach originally, played a key role in attempting to convince Amorim to abandon his beloved 3-4-3. Naturally, these entreaties were resisted. But perhaps these judgements hold greater authority when delivered by a man of a man the impeccable football pedigree of Jason Wilcox, a veteran of international appearances and a role in a title-winning side decades past.

Perhaps in time he might agree to outline his reasoning to the rest of us. Maybe one day he might be asked why Amorim is departing with full compensation, with no penalty clause activated. The director seldom speaks publicly, and with very good reason. The real thinkers in football – individuals such as him – function on a plane beyond our own prosaic understanding. Were he to speak, probably we would perceive would be ultrasonic blips and complex calculations. Wanting is not quite the same as being ready to receive.

An Supreme Power Behind Command

But of course, by focusing our attention on Jason Wilcox we overlook the true genius behind the modern United throne. Jason Wilcox is, after all, simply carrying out the commands of his line manager the billionaire owner, who in private has made very clear his preference for a four-man defense. It is reported, Ratcliffe has also suggested deploying the forward as a right wing-back. Ratcliffe is keen for United to adopt analytics and analytics. According to ESPN, during a leadership summit soon after his investment, he declared that United’s style of play “will be decided in this room”.

After all, Sir Jim is an expert in these intricate footballing stuff, leveraging his previous experience in industry and sailing. Most importantly he remains immensely wealthy, and it is known, the rich are the best of us: more insightful, sagacious, more tactically astute, simply better. Whom else could one trust to oversee a strategic plan of austerity, the building of a modern arena that looks similar to an abstract design, the signing of a new striker?

The New Football Hierarchy: Executives Over Coaches

This is a trend that is becoming prevalent in top-tier football. For decades, clubs foolishly entrusted major sporting choices to low-level employees like managers, scouts – even footballers. Maybe previously possible for a young, innovative manager with a philosophy and drive to go into an organization and implement their plan through to completion. Yet how many businesses have these guys set up? What number of large-scale layoffs have they managed? Better by far to invest genuine authority where it belongs: the leadership tier, the open-necked shirt brigade, the guys with impressive professional resumes. It is wiser to decide the strategy by the directors and hire a coach who can tailor their methods to suit. If coaches were once chefs, they have become more like delivery personnel: not really responsible for the product, but still ultimately answerable if it arrives cold or leaks out to meet standards.

In the meantime, a coach's role has become not about defining the vision and more about selling it: the receptionist of the operation, the public face of an organisation they have minimal power to change. A coach at Chelsea takes a squad of literal children into the Champions League and wins domestic cups, and effectively gets sacked for speaking out. Wilfried Nancy sees his reputation ruined whereas the people who appointed him live to blunder indefinitely.

A Modern Corporate Football: Accountability Only for the Few

And perhaps on some microcosmic level this is simply neoliberalism in action: the rise of a privileged elite who are infallible, whose decisions remain sacrosanct, whose errors can always be sacked away without justification. Hire the 3-4-3 coach and then dismiss them for using too much 3-4-3. Bring in the project manager and later bin them for requiring excessive time. And most importantly be grateful; for your modest season ticket price rises, for your new player acquisitions, for the fact that the adults – regardless of their expertise – remain in control.