🔗 Share this article

Tbecame clear the manager could survive a loss to lower-league opposition. Survive an important European final versus a particularly poor Spurs sides for many years. He could survive home defeats to domestic rivals, finishing 15th, an unwavering system, undermining some of the club’s most promising homegrown talent, a poor winning percentage, calling his team the poorest in Manchester United history. Yet, there existed one adversary against whom the Portuguese coach would not be allowed to dance. You come at the sporting director, and you best not miss.

Regrettably, like many a top-flight right-back in Blackburn’s title-winning campaign, the coach came at the executive and appears to have failed. Even the most distracted of readers can see the irony here: a coach who frequently berated at his players for losing individual battles crumbling in the face of the intense pressure and formidable presence of a England's top division's most feared football executives.

In truth, this whole painful saga seems to paint Jason Wilcox in a different perspective. It may have been easy, based on his nine months of experience at Southampton, to regard him as little more than a drudge within the club's structure: a man whose appointment was due as much to his friendship with his former boss a fellow executive rather than any verifiable talent. How wrong everyone was. By masterfully outmanoeuvring United’s feted manager, as he outmanoeuvred the hapless a previous executive earlier, Jason Wilcox has proved himself to be among football's true generals: a tactical intellect of which the club's mid-table rivals will now be rightly wary.

A Strategic 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 originally, was instrumental in trying to persuade Amorim to abandon his beloved formation. Unsurprisingly, these entreaties faced pushback. But perhaps such directives hold greater authority when issued by a man of a man the impeccable soccer background of Jason Wilcox, a veteran of international appearances and a contributor to a championship team from 31 years ago.

Perhaps in time he may be persuaded to outline his reasoning to the rest of us. Perhaps at some point questions may arise why Amorim is departing with full compensation, without any compensation reduction clause activated. The director seldom speaks in public, for excellent reasons. The real thinkers in football – men like Jason Wilcox – function on a plane exceeding our prosaic understanding. If he ever did speak, most likely all we would hear would be high-frequency signals and complex calculations. Wanting is not quite equivalent to being prepared to comprehend it.

The Supreme Power Behind Command

But of course, in training our focus on the sporting director we overlook the true genius behind the modern United throne. The director is, in reality, simply carrying out the directives of his superior the billionaire owner, who in private has emphasized his desire for a back four. It is reported, Ratcliffe has also suggested deploying the forward in a wing-back role. Ratcliffe is keen for United to embrace analytics and analytics. Per reports, during a leadership summit early in his investment, he declared that United’s style to football “will be determined in this room”.

After all, Ratcliffe is an expert in this technical footballing stuff, leveraging his previous experience in industry and yachting. Above all he remains immensely wealthy, and it is known, the wealthy are superior: more insightful, sagacious, more tactically astute, simply superior. Whom else could one trust to manage an enlightened programme of austerity, the construction of a modern arena that looks a lot like an abstract design, the acquisition of a new striker?

A Modern Football Order: Directors Over Managers

This is a trend that is becoming prevalent in top-tier of the game. For decades, clubs foolishly entrusted major sporting choices to low-level employees such as coaches, talent spotters – even footballers. Maybe previously possible for an up-and-coming, visionary coach with a philosophy and energy to go into an organization and see their vision through to completion. Yet how many companies have such individuals set up? What number of mass redundancies have they managed? Far preferable to invest the real power where it rightly belongs: the leadership tier, the casually dressed executives, the individuals with impressive professional resumes. It is wiser to determine the strategy by the directors and hire a coach who can tailor their methods to suit. If coaches were once chefs, they have become more like Deliveroo drivers: not really creating the food, but still ultimately answerable if it arrives poorly or fails of the box.

Nowadays, a coach's role is increasingly not about crafting the philosophy and more about marketing it: the front-facing representative on the front desk, the visible figurehead for a club they have minimal power to change. Enzo Maresca leads a team of literal children into the Champions League and secures domestic cups, and effectively gets sacked for speaking out. Wilfried Nancy sees his reputation ruined while the people who hired him live to blunder another day.

The Neoliberal Football: Responsibility Only for the Coaches

And perhaps on some microcosmic level this represents neoliberalism in action: the rise of a privileged overclass who can never be wrong, whose choices remain untouchable, whose mistakes can invariably be sacked away without explanation. Hire the 3-4-3 coach and then dismiss him for using too much that system. Bring in the process guy and later bin them for taking too long. And above all show gratitude; for the incremental increases in ticket costs, for your new player acquisitions, for the fact that the adults – regardless of their expertise – are in charge.