🔗 Share this article

Iturns out he was able to withstand losing against Grimsby. He weathered losing a crucial continental showpiece against a particularly poor Spurs sides for many years. He withstood losing at home against West Ham and Wolves, a lowly league position, an unwavering system, laying waste to the team's best academy products, the 32% win rate, calling the squad the worst the club has ever seen. But there was one adversary with whom the Portuguese coach was not permitted to tango. You come at Jason Wilcox, you had better succeed.

Unfortunately, similar to numerous top-flight right-back in Blackburn’s championship campaign, the coach came at Jason Wilcox and seems to have failed. Even the most distracted of readers will notice the paradoxical situation: a manager who frequently berated at his players for losing one-on-one duels crumbling in the face of the intense pressure and animal charisma of a England's top division's most feared football executives.

And frankly, this entire bruising episode appears to portray Jason Wilcox in a different perspective. Perhaps it might have been easy, based on his brief stint in a similar role at Southampton, to view Jason Wilcox as merely a functionary within the club's structure: a man whose appointment was due largely to his close relationship with ex-colleague a fellow executive rather than any demonstrable skill. How wrong we all were. In brilliantly outmanoeuvring United’s feted manager, just as he bested the unfortunate Dan Ashworth before him, Jason Wilcox has proved himself to be among football's strategic masterminds: a tactical intellect of which United’s mid-table rivals are now rightly wary.

A Strategic Conflict Over System and Philosophy

To illustrate, this was the director , after having been part of the hierarchy that hired the 3-4-3 fundamentalist Amorim in the first place, played a key role in attempting to convince Amorim to ditch his beloved formation. Unsurprisingly, these entreaties were resisted. However, such directives carry more weight when issued from the mouth with the impeccable football pedigree of Jason Wilcox, a veteran of international appearances and a contributor to a title-winning side decades past.

Perhaps in time Jason Wilcox might agree to outline his reasoning to the rest of us. Perhaps at some point questions may arise regarding why the coach is walking away with a full payout, with no penalty clause activated. The director speaks rarely publicly, for excellent reasons. The real thinkers of this sport – men like Jason Wilcox – simply operate on a plane exceeding our prosaic understanding. Were he to speak, probably we would perceive would be ultrasonic blips and complex calculations. Desiring an explanation is not the same as being prepared to comprehend it.

An Supreme Authority Behind Command

But of course, in training our focus on Jason Wilcox we are obscuring the real power behind the club's current leadership. Jason Wilcox is, after all, merely executing the commands of his line manager Sir Jim Ratcliffe, who privately has made very clear his preference for a back four. According to reports, Ratcliffe has also proposed deploying the forward in a wing-back role. Ratcliffe is keen for the club to embrace analytics and metrics. According to ESPN, in an executive meeting soon after his minority ownership, he announced that United’s style of play “will be determined by this group”.

Ultimately, Ratcliffe is an expert in these intricate footballing stuff, drawing from his previous experience in petrochemicals and yachting. Most importantly he is incredibly rich, and it is known, the rich are superior: more insightful, sagacious, more tactically astute, fundamentally better. Whom else would you trust to oversee an enlightened programme of austerity, the building of a modern arena that appears a lot like someone’s leftover knitting, the signing of a new striker?

A Modern Football Order: Executives Above Coaches

This is a trend we are increasingly seeing at the elite levels of the game. Historically, teams mistakenly delegated big footballing decisions to subordinate staff such as coaches, talent spotters – even footballers. Maybe previously possible for a young, innovative manager with a philosophy and drive to join an organization and see their vision supported to fruition. Yet how many businesses have such individuals set up? What number of large-scale layoffs have they managed? Better by far to place genuine authority where it belongs: the executive class, the open-necked shirt brigade, the individuals with impressive professional resumes. It is wiser to decide the strategy in the boardroom and appoint someone who will adapt their methods to suit. If managers were formerly chefs, they have become more like delivery personnel: not really responsible for the food, yet ultimately answerable should it be delivered cold or fails of the box.

In the meantime, their job is increasingly less about defining the vision and more about marketing it: the front-facing representative on the front desk, the visible figurehead for a club they can do little to influence. Enzo Maresca leads a team of literal children into Europe and secures two medium-sized trophies, and effectively is dismissed for speaking out. A manager at Celtic finds his reputation ruined whereas those individuals who appointed him live to blunder indefinitely.

The Neoliberal Football: Responsibility Only for the Coaches

And possibly on some microcosmic level this is simply neoliberalism at work: the rise of a privileged elite who are infallible, whose choices are always sacrosanct, whose mistakes can invariably be sacked away without explanation. Hire the 3-4-3 coach only to fire him for playing too much 3-4-3. Hire the process guy and then discard them for taking excessive time. And above all be grateful; for your modest season ticket price rises, for your new summer signings, for the fact that the grownups – regardless of their expertise – remain in control.