The Coach's Fatal Mistake? Taking On Wilcox and an Infallible Leadership Tier

Turns out the manager endured defeat by Grimsby. Survive a decisive European final against one of the worst Spurs sides in living memory. He withstood home defeats against West Ham and Wolves, finishing 15th, his rigid approach, squandering the team's best academy products, a poor winning percentage, labeling his team the poorest in Manchester United history. But there was a single opponent with whom the Portuguese coach would not be allowed to tango. You come at the sporting director, and you best not miss.

In truth, this entire painful saga appears to portray Jason Wilcox in a different perspective. It may have been easy, based on his nine months in a similar role at Southampton, to regard Jason Wilcox as merely a functionary within the club's structure: a man who owed his position as much to his friendship with ex-colleague Omar Berrada as any verifiable talent. How wrong we all were. In brilliantly outmanoeuvring the club's celebrated head coach, as he outmanoeuvred the unfortunate a previous executive earlier, Jason Wilcox has proved himself to be among the sport’s true generals: a tactical intellect that United’s mid-table rivals are now rightly wary.

A Strategic Conflict Regarding System and Ideology

For example, it was the director who being involved in the leadership that appointed the rigid 3-4-3 advocate the coach in the first place, played a key role in attempting to convince him to abandon his beloved formation. Unsurprisingly, these pleas were resisted. But perhaps such directives hold greater authority when issued from the mouth with the impeccable soccer background he possesses, a veteran of three England caps and a contributor to a championship team decades past.

Perhaps in time Jason Wilcox may be persuaded to explain his thought processes to the rest of us. Maybe one day he might be asked why Amorim is departing with full compensation, with no penalty clause activated. But Jason Wilcox speaks rarely publicly, for excellent reasons. The true intellectuals of this sport – men like Jason Wilcox – simply operate at a level beyond our own prosaic understanding. Were he to speak, most likely we would perceive would be high-frequency signals and four-dimensional whirring. Wanting is not equivalent to being ready to comprehend it.

An Supreme Power Behind the Throne

But of course, by focusing our attention on Jason Wilcox we are obscuring the true genius behind the club's current leadership. The director is, in reality, simply carrying out the directives of his line manager Sir Jim Ratcliffe, who privately has emphasized his desire for a four-man defense. According to reports, the owner has also proposed playing Bryan Mbeumo as a right wing-back. Ratcliffe is keen for the club to adopt analytics and analytics. According to ESPN, during a leadership summit early in his minority ownership, he announced that the team's approach to football “will be determined in this room”.

After all, Ratcliffe is an expert in this technical football matters, leveraging his background in industry and sailing. Most importantly he is immensely wealthy, and as we all know, the rich are superior: more perceptive, more wise, more tactically astute, simply better. Who else could one 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 Football Order: Executives Above Coaches

This represents a shift that is becoming prevalent at the elite levels of the game. Historically, clubs foolishly delegated big footballing decisions to subordinate staff like managers, scouts – players themselves. Perhaps it was once feasible for an up-and-coming, visionary coach with ideas and drive to join an organization and implement their plan through to completion. But how many companies have such individuals set up? What number of mass redundancies have they overseen? Better by far to invest the real power where it belongs: the leadership tier, the open-necked shirt brigade, the guys with impressive professional resumes. Better by far to determine the tactics in the boardroom and appoint a coach who can tailor their methods to suit. If managers were formerly chefs, they have become more like Deliveroo drivers: not responsible for the product, yet ultimately answerable should it be delivered cold or leaks out to meet standards.

In the meantime, their job has become less about crafting the philosophy and more about selling it: the front-facing representative of the operation, the visible figurehead of an organisation they have minimal power to influence. Enzo Maresca takes a squad of very young players 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 appointed him live to blunder another day.

The Neoliberal Game: Responsibility Only for the Coaches

And perhaps on some microcosmic level this represents neoliberalism at work: the elevation of a privileged overclass who can never be wrong, whose decisions are always untouchable, whose errors can always be sacked away without explanation. Hire the 3-4-3 coach only to dismiss him for using too much that system. Hire the process guy and later discard them for requiring excessive time. And most importantly show gratitude; for your modest season ticket price rises, for your new player acquisitions, for the fact that the grownups – however well qualified – are in charge.