🔗 Share this article

Iturns out he endured a loss to lower-league opposition. He weathered an important European final against a particularly poor Spurs sides in living memory. He withstood home defeats to West Ham and Wolves, finishing 15th, his rigid approach, undermining the team's best homegrown talent, a poor winning percentage, labeling his team the worst the club has ever seen. But there was one adversary against whom the Portuguese coach would not be allowed to engage. You come at Jason Wilcox, and you best not miss.

Regrettably, similar to numerous top-flight right-back in Blackburn’s championship campaign, the coach took on the executive and appears to have failed. Even the most casual observer will notice the paradoxical situation: a coach who frequently berated his squad for losing individual battles crumbling in the face of the white heat and formidable presence of a England's top division's most intimidating football executives.

And frankly, this entire bruising episode appears to portray the director in a different perspective. Perhaps it might have been tempting, based on his brief stint of experience at Southampton, to regard him as merely a drudge within the club's structure: a man whose appointment was due as much to his close relationship with ex-colleague Omar Berrada as any verifiable talent. How mistaken everyone was. In brilliantly outmanoeuvring United’s feted head coach, as he outmanoeuvred the unfortunate Dan Ashworth before him, Jason Wilcox has demonstrated as one of the sport’s true generals: a tactical intellect of which United’s competitors will now be rightly wary.

The Strategic Clash Regarding System & Philosophy

To illustrate, this was the director , after having been part of the leadership that appointed the 3-4-3 fundamentalist Amorim in the first place, played a key role in trying to persuade him to abandon his favored 3-4-3. Unsurprisingly, these pleas met a certain resistance. However, these judgements carry more weight when delivered by a man with the impeccable football pedigree he possesses, holder of three England caps and a role in a title-winning side from 31 years ago.

Perhaps in time Jason Wilcox might agree to outline his thought processes publicly. Perhaps at some point he might be asked regarding why the coach is walking away with a full payout, without any compensation reduction clause in place. But Jason Wilcox seldom speaks publicly, and with very good reason. The true intellectuals of this sport – individuals such as Jason Wilcox – function at a level beyond our own mundane comprehension. Were he to speak, most likely all we would hear would be high-frequency signals and four-dimensional whirring. Desiring an explanation is not quite equivalent to being prepared to receive.

The Supreme Power In the Throne

Naturally, by focusing our attention on the sporting director we are obscuring the true genius behind the club's current leadership. The director is, in reality, merely executing the commands of his superior Sir Jim Ratcliffe, who privately has made very clear his preference for a back four. According to reports, the owner has also suggested deploying the forward in a wing-back role. The owner is eager for the club to embrace analytics and analytics. Per reports, in an executive meeting soon after his investment, he declared that United’s style of play “shall be determined in this room”.

After all, Ratcliffe is an expert in these intricate footballing stuff, drawing from his background in industry and sailing. Most importantly he is immensely wealthy, and it is known, the wealthy are the best of us: more insightful, sagacious, more tactically astute, fundamentally better. Who else would you trust to oversee an enlightened programme of cost-cutting, the construction of a new stadium that looks similar to someone’s leftover knitting, the acquisition of a new striker?

The Modern Football Order: Executives Over Coaches

This is a trend we are increasingly seeing in top-tier football. Historically, clubs foolishly entrusted major sporting choices to low-level employees like managers, scouts – even footballers. Perhaps it was once feasible for an up-and-coming, innovative manager with ideas and drive to join an organization and see their vision through to completion. Yet how many companies have these guys established? What number of mass redundancies have they overseen? Far preferable to place genuine authority where it belongs: the executive class, the open-necked shirt brigade, the guys with the jaw-dropping professional resumes. It is wiser to decide the tactics by the directors and appoint a coach who can tailor their methods to suit. If coaches were formerly chefs, they have become more like delivery personnel: not creating the food, yet finally accountable should it be delivered poorly or leaks out to meet standards.

In the meantime, their job has become less about defining the vision and more about marketing it: the receptionist on the front desk, the public face of an organisation they can do little to change. A coach at Chelsea leads a team of literal children into the Champions League and wins two medium-sized trophies, and essentially gets sacked for speaking out. Wilfried Nancy sees his reputation ruined whereas those individuals who hired him live to blunder another day.

A Neoliberal Game: Accountability for the Coaches

And perhaps on some microcosmic level this represents corporate governance at work: the elevation of a privileged overclass who can never be wrong, whose choices are always sacrosanct, whose errors can always be sacked away without justification. Appoint the 3-4-3 coach and then dismiss them for using excessively that system. Hire the project manager and later discard them for requiring too long. And above all be grateful; for your modest increases in ticket costs, for your new summer signings, for the reality that the grownups – regardless of their expertise – remain in control.