🔗 Share this article

Itranspired the manager could survive defeat by lower-league opposition. He weathered a decisive continental showpiece against a particularly poor Tottenham teams in living memory. He withstood losing at home to domestic rivals, a lowly league position, the tactical inflexibility, undermining the team's most promising homegrown talent, a poor winning percentage, labeling the squad the poorest in Manchester United history. But there was a single opponent against whom the Portuguese coach would not be allowed to tango. If you challenge the sporting director, you had better succeed.

Unfortunately, similar to numerous Premiership right-back during Blackburn Rovers' championship 1994-95 season, the coach came at the executive and seems to have missed. Even the most casual observer can see the irony here: a manager who often railed his squad for failing in one-on-one duels crumbling in the face of the intense pressure and formidable presence of one of England's top division's most intimidating football executives.

And frankly, this whole bruising episode appears to portray Jason Wilcox in a different perspective. Perhaps it might have been tempting, given his brief stint in a similar role at Southampton, to regard Jason Wilcox as little more than a functionary in the United exoskeleton: a man who owed his position largely to his close relationship with ex-colleague Omar Berrada as any verifiable talent. How wrong everyone was. In brilliantly outmanoeuvring the club's celebrated head coach, as he outmanoeuvred the unfortunate Dan Ashworth before him, Jason Wilcox has proved himself as one of football's strategic masterminds: a tactical intellect that United’s mid-table rivals will now be rightly wary.

A Tactical Conflict Over System & Ideology

For example, it was the director who having been part of the hierarchy that hired the 3-4-3 fundamentalist Amorim in the first place, played a key role in attempting to convince him to abandon his favored formation. Unsurprisingly, these entreaties met a certain resistance. But perhaps such directives hold greater authority when issued by a man with the unimpeachable football pedigree of Jason Wilcox, holder of three England caps and a contributor to a championship team decades past.

Maybe eventually he may be persuaded to explain his reasoning to the rest of us. Perhaps at some point he might be asked regarding why the coach is walking away with full compensation, with no penalty clause activated. But Jason Wilcox seldom speaks publicly, for excellent reasons. The real thinkers of this sport – men like him – function on a plane exceeding our prosaic understanding. Were he to speak, probably all we would hear is a series of ultrasonic blips and four-dimensional whirring. Wanting is not equivalent to being ready to comprehend it.

The Supreme Power Behind Command

But of course, in training our focus on Jason Wilcox we are obscuring the real power behind the club's current leadership. Jason Wilcox is, in reality, simply carrying out the directives of his line manager the billionaire owner, who privately has emphasized his desire for a four-man defense. It is reported, Ratcliffe has also proposed playing Bryan Mbeumo in a wing-back role. Ratcliffe is keen for the club to embrace analytics and metrics. According to ESPN, in an executive meeting early in his minority ownership, he declared that the team's approach to football “will be decided in this room”.

After all, Ratcliffe is an expert in this technical football matters, leveraging his previous experience in petrochemicals and sailing. Most importantly he remains immensely wealthy, and as we all know, the wealthy are superior: more insightful, sagacious, more tactically astute, simply better. Whom else could one trust to manage an enlightened programme of cost-cutting, the building of a new stadium that looks similar to someone’s leftover knitting, the signing of Benjamin Sesko?

The Modern Football Order: Directors Over Managers

This is a trend we are increasingly seeing in top-tier football. Historically, teams mistakenly delegated big footballing decisions to low-level employees like managers, scouts – players themselves. Maybe previously feasible for an up-and-coming, innovative manager with a philosophy and drive to go into an organization and implement their plan supported to fruition. Yet how many businesses have such individuals set up? What number of mass redundancies have they managed? Better by far to place the real power where it belongs: the leadership tier, the casually dressed executives, the individuals with the jaw-dropping professional resumes. It is wiser to decide the tactics by the directors and appoint someone who will adapt their offering to suit. If coaches were formerly chefs, they have become more akin to Deliveroo drivers: not really creating the food, yet ultimately answerable should it be delivered poorly or leaks out of the box.

Nowadays, a coach's role has become not about defining the vision and more about marketing it: the receptionist on the front desk, the public face of an organisation they have minimal power to influence. A coach at Chelsea leads a team of literal children into the Champions League and secures two medium-sized trophies, and effectively is dismissed for talking. Wilfried Nancy sees his standing damaged while the people who appointed him continue to make errors indefinitely.

The Modern Corporate Football: Accountability Only for the Coaches

And perhaps on some microcosmic level this represents neoliberalism at work: the elevation of a privileged elite who can never be wrong, whose choices are always untouchable, whose errors can invariably be resolved by sacking without explanation. Appoint the system coach only to dismiss them for using too much 3-4-3. Hire the project manager and then bin them for requiring excessive time. 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 – remain in control.