🔗 Share this article

Tbecame clear Ruben Amorim could survive defeat by lower-league opposition. Survive losing a crucial European final against one of the worst Tottenham teams in living memory. He could survive losing at home to West Ham and Wolves, a lowly league position, his rigid approach, squandering some of the club’s best academy products, the 32% win rate, calling the squad the poorest the club has ever seen. But there was one adversary against whom the Portuguese coach was not permitted to dance. If you challenge the sporting director, and you best not miss.

Unfortunately, similar to numerous Premiership right-back in Blackburn’s championship campaign, the coach took on the executive and seems to have missed. The most casual observer can see the paradoxical situation: a coach who frequently berated at his players for losing one-on-one duels succumbing in the face of the intense pressure and animal charisma of a the Premier League’s most feared football executives.

In truth, this entire bruising episode appears to portray Jason Wilcox in a whole new light. It may have been tempting, based on his nine months of experience with the Saints, to regard Jason Wilcox as merely a drudge within the club's structure: a man whose appointment was due largely to his close relationship with his former boss a fellow executive as any verifiable talent. How wrong everyone was. In brilliantly outmanoeuvring the club's celebrated manager, as he outmanoeuvred the hapless Dan Ashworth before him, Jason Wilcox has demonstrated as one of football's true generals: a strategic mind that United’s competitors are now justifiably concerned.

The Strategic Conflict Over Formation & Philosophy

For example, this was Jason Wilcox who being involved in the leadership that appointed the 3-4-3 fundamentalist the coach in the first place, was instrumental in attempting to convince him to ditch his favored formation. Unsurprisingly, these entreaties faced pushback. However, these judgements carry more weight when delivered from the mouth of a man the unimpeachable football pedigree of Jason Wilcox, a veteran of three England caps and a role in a championship team from 31 years ago.

Perhaps in time he may be persuaded to outline his thought processes publicly. Maybe one day he might be asked why Amorim is walking away with full compensation, with no compensation reduction clause in place. The director speaks rarely publicly, and with very good reason. The real thinkers of this sport – men like Jason Wilcox – simply operate at a level beyond our own mundane comprehension. If he ever did speak, most likely all we would hear would be high-frequency signals and complex calculations. Wanting is not equivalent to being ready to comprehend it.

The Ultimate Power In Command

Naturally, in training our focus on the sporting director we overlook the true genius behind the club's current leadership. The director is, after all, simply carrying out the directives of his superior the billionaire owner, who in private has emphasized his desire for a four-man defense. According to reports, the owner has also suggested deploying the forward in a wing-back role. Ratcliffe is keen for the club to embrace data science and analytics. Per reports, during a leadership summit soon after his investment, he declared that the team's approach of play “will be decided by this group”.

Ultimately, Sir Jim is a specialist in these intricate football matters, drawing from his background in petrochemicals and yachting. Above all he is incredibly rich, and it is known, the rich are superior: more insightful, sagacious, strategically brilliant, simply superior. Who else could one trust to manage an enlightened programme of austerity, the construction of a modern arena that appears similar to an abstract design, the acquisition of Benjamin Sesko?

The Modern Soccer Hierarchy: Executives Above Coaches

This represents a shift we are increasingly seeing in top-tier football. Historically, teams mistakenly entrusted big footballing decisions to low-level employees such as coaches, scouts – even footballers. Maybe previously possible for a young, visionary coach with a philosophy and energy to go into an organization and see their vision through to completion. But how many businesses have such individuals set up? What number of mass redundancies have they managed? Better by far to invest the real power where it belongs: the leadership tier, the casually dressed executives, the guys with impressive professional resumes. It is wiser to determine the strategy by the directors and appoint someone who will adapt their methods to suit. If managers were once chefs, they are now more like delivery personnel: not creating the food, yet finally accountable should it be delivered cold or leaks out of the box.

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 public face of an organisation they can do little to influence. Enzo Maresca takes a squad of literal children into the Champions League and secures domestic cups, and essentially gets sacked for speaking out. Wilfried Nancy finds his standing damaged while those individuals who hired him continue to make errors indefinitely.

A Neoliberal Game: Responsibility for the Few

And perhaps in a small way this is simply neoliberalism in action: the elevation of a privileged elite who can never be wrong, whose choices are always sacrosanct, whose errors can always be sacked away without justification. Appoint the 3-4-3 coach only to fire them for playing excessively that system. Hire the project manager and then bin them for requiring too long. And above all show gratitude; for the incremental increases in ticket costs, for the latest summer signings, for the reality that the grownups – however well qualified – are in charge.