The Coach's Critical Mistake? Taking On Wilcox and the Infallible Leadership Class

Iturns out Ruben Amorim was able to withstand losing against lower-league opposition. Survive a decisive European final versus a particularly poor Tottenham teams for many years. He could survive losing at home to domestic rivals, finishing 15th, his rigid approach, laying waste to some of the club’s most promising homegrown talent, a poor winning percentage, labeling the squad the worst the club has ever seen. Yet, there existed a single opponent with whom the Portuguese coach was not permitted to dance. You come at Jason Wilcox, and you best not miss.

And frankly, this entire bruising episode appears to portray the director in a whole new light. Perhaps it might have been tempting, given his nine months of experience at Southampton, to regard Jason Wilcox as merely a functionary within the club's structure: an individual whose appointment was due as much to his close relationship with ex-colleague a fellow executive rather than any verifiable talent. How mistaken we all were. In brilliantly outmanoeuvring the club's celebrated head coach, as he outmanoeuvred the hapless Dan Ashworth before him, Jason Wilcox has proved himself to be among the sport’s strategic masterminds: a tactical intellect of which United’s competitors are now rightly wary.

The Tactical Conflict Over Formation & Ideology

To illustrate, it was the director who having been part of the leadership that appointed the 3-4-3 fundamentalist Amorim originally, played a key role in trying to persuade Amorim to ditch his favored formation. Naturally, these pleas were resisted. However, these judgements hold greater authority when issued by a man with the unimpeachable football pedigree of Jason Wilcox, a veteran of international appearances and a contributor to a championship team decades past.

Perhaps in time he might agree to explain his thought processes publicly. Perhaps at some point he might be asked regarding why the coach is departing with full compensation, with no compensation reduction clause activated. The director speaks rarely publicly, and with very good reason. The true intellectuals in football – individuals such as Jason Wilcox – function on a plane beyond our own mundane comprehension. Were he to speak, most likely all we would hear is a series of high-frequency signals and four-dimensional whirring. Wanting is not quite equivalent to being ready to comprehend it.

The Supreme Power Behind the Throne

But of course, in training our focus on the sporting director we are obscuring the real power behind the club's current leadership. The director is, in reality, merely executing the directives of his ultimate line manager Sir Jim Ratcliffe, who privately has made very clear his preference for a back four. According to reports, Ratcliffe has also suggested deploying the forward in a wing-back role. The owner is eager for United to embrace data science and metrics. Per reports, in an executive meeting early in his investment, he announced that United’s style of play “shall 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. Above all he remains incredibly rich, and it is known, the wealthy are superior: more insightful, sagacious, strategically brilliant, simply better. Who else would you trust to oversee an enlightened programme of austerity, the building of a modern arena that appears similar to someone’s leftover knitting, the acquisition of a new striker?

The Modern Soccer Order: Executives Over Coaches

This represents a shift that is becoming prevalent in top-tier of the game. Historically, clubs foolishly delegated big footballing decisions to low-level employees such as coaches, talent spotters – even footballers. Perhaps it was once possible for an up-and-coming, visionary coach with a philosophy and energy to join a club and implement their plan through to completion. Yet how many companies have these guys set up? What number of large-scale layoffs have they managed? Better by far to invest the real power where it rightly belongs: the executive class, the casually dressed executives, the individuals with the jaw-dropping LinkedIn profiles. It is wiser to decide the strategy in the boardroom and appoint someone who will adapt their methods accordingly. If managers were once chefs, they have become more akin to delivery personnel: not creating the food, but still finally accountable should it be delivered poorly or leaks out of the box.

In the meantime, their job has become less about defining the vision and more about selling it: the receptionist on the front desk, the visible figurehead of an organisation they can do little to influence. A coach at Chelsea takes a squad of literal children into Europe and wins two medium-sized trophies, and effectively gets sacked for speaking out. A manager at Celtic finds his standing damaged whereas those individuals who hired him live to blunder indefinitely.

The Modern Corporate Football: Accountability Only for the Few

And possibly on some microcosmic level this is simply neoliberalism in action: the elevation of a privileged elite who can never be wrong, whose decisions remain untouchable, whose mistakes can invariably be resolved by sacking without explanation. Appoint the 3-4-3 coach only to fire him for using too much that system. Hire the process guy and then bin them for requiring excessive time. And most importantly be grateful; for the incremental season ticket price rises, for the latest player acquisitions, for the reality that the adults – regardless of their expertise – are in charge.