🔗 Share this article

Itranspired Ruben Amorim could survive a loss to Grimsby. Survive an important continental showpiece against a particularly poor Tottenham teams for many years. He could survive home defeats to domestic rivals, finishing 15th, the tactical inflexibility, squandering the team's best homegrown talent, the 32% win rate, calling the squad the worst in Manchester United history. But there was one adversary with whom Ruben Amorim was not permitted to engage. If you challenge Jason Wilcox, and you best not miss.

Regrettably, similar to numerous top-flight right-back in Blackburn’s championship campaign, Amorim came at the executive and appears to have missed. Even the most distracted of readers will notice the irony here: a coach who often railed at his players for failing in individual battles crumbling in the face of the white heat and formidable presence of a the Premier League’s most intimidating sporting directors.

In truth, this entire painful saga appears to portray Jason Wilcox in a whole new light. Perhaps it might have been tempting, given his brief stint of experience with the Saints, to view Jason Wilcox as merely a drudge in the United exoskeleton: an individual who owed his position largely to his close relationship with his former boss Omar Berrada as any demonstrable skill. How wrong we all were. In brilliantly outsmarting the club's celebrated head coach, just as he bested the hapless a previous executive earlier, he has proved himself as one of football's true generals: a strategic mind that United’s mid-table rivals will now be rightly wary.

A Strategic Conflict Regarding System and Ideology

For example, this was Jason Wilcox who being involved in the hierarchy that hired the 3-4-3 fundamentalist Amorim in the first place, played a key role in attempting to convince Amorim to ditch his favored 3-4-3. Unsurprisingly, these entreaties were resisted. But perhaps these judgements hold greater authority when delivered from the mouth of a man the impeccable soccer background he possesses, holder of three England caps and a role in a title-winning side from 31 years ago.

Maybe eventually he might agree to outline his thought processes publicly. Maybe one day questions may arise regarding why the coach is walking away with a full payout, without any compensation reduction clause activated. The director speaks rarely publicly, and with very good reason. The true intellectuals of this sport – individuals such as him – simply operate on a plane beyond our own prosaic understanding. Were he to speak, most likely we would perceive is a series of ultrasonic blips and complex calculations. Wanting is not equivalent to being ready to receive.

The Supreme Authority Behind Command

Naturally, in training our focus on the sporting director we overlook the true genius behind the modern United throne. The director is, after all, simply carrying out the commands of his line manager Sir Jim Ratcliffe, who privately has made very clear his desire for a back four. According to reports, Ratcliffe has also proposed playing Bryan Mbeumo in a wing-back role. The owner is eager for United to adopt analytics and analytics. According to ESPN, in an executive meeting soon after his investment, he announced that United’s style to football “will be decided by this group”.

After all, Sir Jim is an expert in these intricate footballing stuff, drawing from his previous experience in petrochemicals and sailing. Above all he is immensely wealthy, and as we all know, the rich are the best of us: more insightful, sagacious, more tactically astute, simply better. Who else could one trust to oversee an enlightened programme of austerity, the building of a modern arena that looks similar to someone’s leftover knitting, the signing of Benjamin Sesko?

A New Football Hierarchy: Executives Over Coaches

This is a trend that is becoming prevalent in top-tier of the game. For decades, teams mistakenly entrusted major sporting choices to subordinate staff such as coaches, talent spotters – even footballers. Maybe previously feasible 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 such individuals set up? How many mass redundancies have they managed? Better by far to invest genuine authority where it belongs: the executive class, the casually dressed executives, the individuals with impressive professional resumes. Better by far to determine the strategy in the boardroom and hire a coach who will adapt their methods to suit. If managers were formerly chefs, they are now more like delivery personnel: not creating the product, but still ultimately answerable if it arrives poorly or fails to meet standards.

In the meantime, their job is increasingly less about defining the vision and more about selling 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 very young players into Europe and wins two medium-sized trophies, and effectively gets sacked for speaking out. A manager at Celtic sees his standing damaged whereas the people who hired him continue to make errors another day.

A Neoliberal Game: Accountability Only for the Few

And possibly in a small way this is simply corporate governance at work: the elevation of a gilded overclass who are infallible, whose choices remain untouchable, whose mistakes can always be sacked away without explanation. Appoint the 3-4-3 coach and then dismiss them for playing too much that system. Bring in the process guy and later bin them for requiring excessive time. And most importantly show gratitude; for your modest increases in ticket costs, for the latest player acquisitions, for the fact that the adults – regardless of their expertise – are in charge.