🔗 Share this article

Itbecame clear Ruben Amorim endured losing against lower-league opposition. He weathered losing a crucial European final versus a particularly poor Tottenham teams in living memory. He withstood losing at home against domestic rivals, a lowly league position, his rigid approach, squandering the team's most promising homegrown talent, the 32% win rate, calling his team the worst the club has ever seen. Yet, there existed a single opponent with whom the Portuguese coach was not permitted to tango. If you challenge the sporting director, and you best not miss.

Unfortunately, like many a top-flight defender in Blackburn’s championship 1994-95 season, the coach took on Jason Wilcox and seems to have missed. The most casual observer can see the irony here: a manager who frequently berated his squad for losing individual battles succumbing in the face of the white heat and formidable presence of a England's top division's most feared football executives.

And frankly, this entire bruising episode appears to portray the director in a different perspective. Perhaps it might have been tempting, given his nine months of experience at Southampton, to regard him as little more than a drudge in the United exoskeleton: an individual who owed his position largely to his close relationship with ex-colleague Omar Berrada as any verifiable talent. How wrong everyone was. By masterfully outsmarting United’s feted manager, just as he bested the unfortunate Dan Ashworth before him, he has demonstrated to be among football's strategic masterminds: a tactical intellect of which the club's mid-table rivals will now be justifiably concerned.

The Tactical Clash Over Formation and Philosophy

To illustrate, it was the director who having been part of the hierarchy that hired the rigid 3-4-3 advocate the coach in the first place, played a key role in trying to persuade him to ditch his beloved formation. Naturally, these pleas faced pushback. However, these judgements hold greater authority when issued from the mouth with the impeccable soccer background of Jason Wilcox, a veteran of three England caps and a role in a title-winning side from 31 years ago.

Maybe eventually Jason Wilcox 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, with no penalty clause activated. The director seldom speaks in public, and with very good reason. The real thinkers of this sport – individuals such as him – simply operate at a level beyond our own prosaic understanding. Were he to speak, most likely all we would hear would be ultrasonic blips and four-dimensional whirring. Wanting is not quite equivalent to being prepared to receive.

An Supreme Authority In Command

But of course, in training our focus on Jason Wilcox we are obscuring the real power behind the modern United throne. Jason Wilcox is, in reality, merely executing the directives of his ultimate line manager Sir Jim Ratcliffe, who in private has made very clear his desire for a four-man defense. According to reports, Ratcliffe has also suggested deploying the forward in a wing-back role. The owner is eager for the club to adopt data science and metrics. According to ESPN, in an executive meeting early in his minority ownership, he announced that United’s style of play “shall be decided by this group”.

Ultimately, Ratcliffe is an expert in these intricate football matters, drawing from his background in industry and yachting. Above all he remains incredibly rich, and it is known, the wealthy are superior: more insightful, sagacious, strategically brilliant, fundamentally better. Who else could one trust to oversee an enlightened programme of austerity, the construction of a new stadium that looks a lot like someone’s leftover knitting, the signing of a new striker?

The New Soccer Order: Directors Above Coaches

This represents a shift that is becoming prevalent at the elite levels football. For decades, clubs foolishly entrusted big footballing decisions to subordinate staff such as coaches, scouts – even footballers. Perhaps it was once possible for an up-and-coming, innovative manager with a philosophy and energy to join a club and see their vision supported to fruition. Yet how many companies have these guys set up? How many large-scale layoffs have they managed? Better by far to invest genuine authority where it belongs: the executive class, the casually dressed executives, the individuals with impressive professional resumes. It is wiser to decide the tactics in the boardroom and hire a coach who will adapt their methods accordingly. If managers were once chefs, they have become more akin to Deliveroo drivers: not creating the food, yet ultimately answerable should it be delivered cold or fails of the box.

Nowadays, their job is increasingly not about defining the vision and more about marketing it: the front-facing representative on the front desk, the public face of an organisation they can do little to change. A coach at Chelsea takes a squad of very young players into Europe and wins domestic cups, and essentially gets sacked for speaking out. Wilfried Nancy sees his reputation ruined while those individuals who hired him continue to make errors another day.

The Neoliberal Game: Accountability for the Coaches

And possibly in a small way this is simply corporate governance in action: the rise of a gilded elite who can never be wrong, whose decisions remain sacrosanct, whose mistakes can always be sacked away without justification. Appoint the 3-4-3 coach only to dismiss them for playing too much 3-4-3. Hire the project manager and later bin them for requiring too long. And most importantly show gratitude; for your modest increases in ticket costs, for your new player acquisitions, for the fact that the grownups – regardless of their expertise – remain in control.