🔗 Share this article

Turns out the manager could survive defeat by lower-league opposition. Survive an important European final against one of the worst Spurs sides for many years. He could survive losing at home against domestic rivals, finishing 15th, the tactical inflexibility, laying waste to some of the club’s most promising academy products, a poor winning percentage, calling the squad the poorest in Manchester United history. But there was a single opponent against whom the Portuguese coach was not permitted to dance. If you challenge the sporting director, and you best not miss.

Regrettably, similar to numerous Premiership defender in Blackburn’s championship 1994-95 season, the coach came at Jason Wilcox and appears to have missed. Even the most casual observer can see the irony here: a manager who frequently berated at his players for losing individual battles crumbling when confronted by the white heat and formidable presence of a England's top division's most intimidating sporting directors.

In truth, this entire bruising episode appears to portray the director in a whole new light. Perhaps it might have been tempting, given his brief stint of experience with the Saints, to regard Jason Wilcox as little more than a drudge within the club's structure: an individual who owed his position as much to his close relationship with ex-colleague a fellow executive rather than any demonstrable skill. How wrong everyone was. By masterfully outmanoeuvring the club's celebrated manager, just as he bested the unfortunate Dan Ashworth before him, he has proved himself as one of the sport’s strategic masterminds: a tactical intellect of which the club's mid-table rivals will now be rightly wary.

A Tactical Conflict Over System & Ideology

To illustrate, it was Jason Wilcox , after having been part of the leadership that hired the 3-4-3 fundamentalist Amorim originally, played a key role in attempting to convince him to abandon his beloved formation. Unsurprisingly, these entreaties faced pushback. However, these judgements carry more weight when issued from the mouth of a man the impeccable football pedigree of Jason Wilcox, a veteran of three England caps and a contributor to a title-winning side from 31 years ago.

Perhaps in time he may be persuaded to explain his reasoning to the rest of us. Maybe one day questions may arise regarding why the coach is departing with full compensation, with no compensation reduction clause in place. But Jason Wilcox seldom speaks in public, for excellent reasons. The true intellectuals of this sport – men like Jason Wilcox – simply operate at a level beyond our own mundane comprehension. Were he to speak, most likely all we would hear would be ultrasonic blips and four-dimensional whirring. Desiring an explanation is not quite the same as being prepared to receive.

An Supreme Power In Command

Naturally, in training our focus on the sporting director we overlook the real power behind the modern United throne. The director is, after all, merely executing the commands of his ultimate line manager the billionaire owner, who privately has made very clear his desire for a back four. It is reported, the owner has also proposed deploying the forward in a wing-back role. Ratcliffe is keen for United to embrace analytics and analytics. Per reports, in an executive meeting soon after his minority ownership, he declared that United’s style of play “will be decided in this room”.

Ultimately, Ratcliffe is a specialist in this technical football matters, leveraging his background in industry and sailing. Most importantly he remains incredibly rich, and it is known, the wealthy are superior: more perceptive, more wise, more tactically astute, simply better. Who else could one trust to manage a strategic plan of cost-cutting, the building of a new stadium that looks similar to an abstract design, the signing of Benjamin Sesko?

A New Soccer Hierarchy: Directors Over Coaches

This is a trend we are increasingly seeing in top-tier of the game. For decades, clubs foolishly entrusted major sporting choices to subordinate staff like managers, scouts – players themselves. Maybe previously possible for an up-and-coming, visionary coach with a philosophy and drive to go into an organization and see their vision through to completion. But how many companies have such individuals established? What number of large-scale layoffs have they managed? Far preferable to place genuine authority where it rightly belongs: the executive class, the open-necked shirt brigade, the guys with the jaw-dropping professional resumes. Better by far to determine the tactics by the directors and hire someone who can tailor their offering to suit. If coaches were formerly chefs, they have become more like 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 less about crafting the philosophy and more about selling it: the front-facing representative of the operation, the visible figurehead for a club they have minimal power to influence. A coach at Chelsea takes a squad of literal children into Europe and secures two medium-sized trophies, and essentially gets sacked for talking. Wilfried Nancy sees his standing damaged while the people who hired him continue to make errors another day.

A Neoliberal Football: Responsibility for the Few

And perhaps in a small way this is simply neoliberalism in action: the rise of a gilded overclass who can never be wrong, whose choices remain untouchable, whose errors can always be sacked away without explanation. Appoint the 3-4-3 coach only to fire them for playing excessively that system. Bring in the process guy and then discard them for taking excessive time. And most importantly be grateful; for the incremental increases in ticket costs, for your new summer signings, for the fact that the adults – however well qualified – are in charge.