The Coach's Fatal Error? Challenging The Executives and an Unassailable Leadership Class

Itranspired he could survive a loss to Grimsby. Survive a decisive European final against a particularly poor Spurs sides for many years. He withstood home defeats to domestic rivals, a lowly league position, an unwavering system, laying waste to the team's best homegrown talent, a poor winning percentage, labeling the squad the poorest in Manchester United history. But there was a single opponent with whom the Portuguese coach was not permitted to engage. You come at the sporting director, and you best not miss.

And frankly, this whole painful saga seems to paint the director in a whole new light. Perhaps it might have been tempting, based on his nine months in a similar role with the Saints, to regard him as merely a drudge within the club's structure: a man who owed his position as much to his friendship with ex-colleague Omar Berrada rather than any verifiable talent. How wrong we all were. By masterfully outmanoeuvring the club's celebrated head coach, as he outmanoeuvred the hapless a previous executive earlier, Jason Wilcox has demonstrated as one of football's true generals: a tactical intellect of which United’s mid-table rivals will now be rightly wary.

The Strategic Conflict Over Formation & Ideology

To illustrate, it was Jason Wilcox who being involved in the hierarchy that hired the rigid 3-4-3 advocate Amorim originally, was instrumental in trying to persuade Amorim to ditch his beloved formation. Naturally, these pleas met a certain resistance. However, these judgements carry more weight when issued by a man with the unimpeachable soccer background of Jason Wilcox, holder of three England caps and a contributor to a championship team decades past.

Perhaps in time he might agree to outline his reasoning to the rest of us. Perhaps at some point he might be asked why Amorim is departing with full compensation, without any penalty clause activated. The director speaks rarely publicly, for excellent reasons. The true intellectuals in football – individuals such as Jason Wilcox – function on a plane exceeding our mundane comprehension. Were he to speak, most likely we would perceive is a series of high-frequency signals and four-dimensional whirring. Wanting is not quite the same as being prepared to receive.

The Supreme Power Behind Command

But of course, by focusing our attention on Jason Wilcox we are obscuring the true genius behind the club's current leadership. Jason Wilcox is, after all, simply carrying out the directives of his line manager Sir Jim Ratcliffe, who in private has emphasized his preference for a back four. According to reports, the owner has also proposed playing Bryan Mbeumo in a wing-back role. Ratcliffe is keen for the club to embrace data science and metrics. Per reports, during a leadership summit soon after his minority ownership, he announced that the team's approach of play “will be determined by this group”.

After all, Ratcliffe is a specialist in this technical football matters, drawing from his previous experience in petrochemicals and yachting. Most importantly he is immensely wealthy, and as we all know, the wealthy are superior: more insightful, more wise, strategically brilliant, simply superior. Whom else could one trust to manage an enlightened programme of austerity, the building of a modern arena that looks similar to someone’s leftover knitting, the acquisition of Benjamin Sesko?

The New Soccer Order: Directors Above Managers

This is a trend that is becoming prevalent in top-tier of the game. Historically, teams mistakenly entrusted big footballing decisions to subordinate staff such as coaches, talent spotters – players themselves. Perhaps it was once feasible for a young, visionary coach with a philosophy and drive to go into an organization and see their vision supported to fruition. Yet how many businesses have these guys established? How many mass redundancies have they managed? Better by far to place the real power where it belongs: the leadership tier, the casually dressed executives, the guys with impressive professional resumes. Better by far to determine the strategy by the directors and hire someone who will adapt their methods accordingly. If coaches were formerly chefs, they are now more akin to delivery personnel: not creating the product, but still finally accountable should it be delivered cold or leaks out to meet standards.

In the meantime, a coach's role has become 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 can do little to change. Enzo Maresca leads a team of very young players into the Champions League and wins domestic cups, and essentially is dismissed for talking. A manager at Celtic finds his standing damaged while those individuals who appointed him live to blunder indefinitely.

A Neoliberal Football: Responsibility Only for the Few

And perhaps on some microcosmic level this is simply corporate governance in action: the elevation of a gilded elite who can never be wrong, whose decisions are always sacrosanct, whose mistakes can always be sacked away without justification. Hire the system coach and then dismiss him for playing too much that system. Hire the project manager and later bin him for taking too long. And above all show gratitude; for your modest season ticket price rises, for the latest player acquisitions, for the reality that the adults – however well qualified – remain in control.