🔗 Share this article

Transpired the manager endured defeat by lower-league opposition. Survive losing a crucial continental showpiece against one of the worst Tottenham teams for many years. He withstood home defeats to West Ham and Wolves, a lowly league position, the tactical inflexibility, undermining the team's most promising homegrown talent, the 32% win rate, labeling his team the poorest the club has ever seen. But there was a single opponent against whom Ruben Amorim would not be allowed to dance. If you challenge the sporting director, you had better succeed.

Unfortunately, like many a Premiership right-back in Blackburn’s title-winning campaign, Amorim came at the executive and seems to have failed. The most casual observer can see the irony here: a coach who often railed his squad for losing individual battles crumbling when confronted by the white heat and formidable presence of a the Premier League’s most feared football executives.

In truth, this whole bruising episode appears to portray the director in a whole new light. It may have been easy, given his nine months of experience with the Saints, to view him as little more than a functionary within the club's structure: a man who owed his position largely to his close relationship with ex-colleague Omar Berrada rather than any verifiable talent. How wrong everyone was. By masterfully outsmarting the club's celebrated manager, as he outmanoeuvred the hapless Dan Ashworth earlier, he has proved himself as one of football's true generals: a tactical intellect of which United’s competitors will now be rightly wary.

The Strategic Clash Regarding Formation and Philosophy

To illustrate, it was Jason Wilcox who having been part of the leadership that hired the 3-4-3 fundamentalist Amorim in the first place, played a key role in attempting to convince Amorim to abandon his favored formation. Naturally, these entreaties were resisted. But perhaps these judgements carry more weight when issued from the mouth of a man the impeccable soccer background he possesses, a veteran of international appearances and a role in a title-winning side decades past.

Maybe eventually he may be persuaded to outline his reasoning publicly. Maybe one day questions may arise regarding why the coach is departing with full compensation, with no penalty clause in place. The director seldom speaks in public, for excellent reasons. The true intellectuals of this sport – individuals such as him – function at a level beyond our own prosaic understanding. Were he to speak, most likely we would perceive would be high-frequency signals and complex calculations. Wanting is not quite the same as being ready to receive.

The Supreme Authority Behind the Throne

Naturally, by focusing our attention on Jason Wilcox we overlook the true genius behind the modern United throne. The director is, after all, merely executing the commands of his ultimate superior the billionaire owner, who in private 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 United to embrace data science and metrics. According to ESPN, in an executive meeting soon after his minority ownership, he declared that United’s style of play “will be decided in this room”.

After all, Sir Jim is an expert in this technical footballing stuff, leveraging his previous experience in industry and yachting. Above all he remains incredibly rich, and as we all know, the rich are the best of us: more insightful, more wise, strategically brilliant, simply superior. Who else would you trust to manage an enlightened programme of cost-cutting, the construction of a modern arena that looks similar to someone’s leftover knitting, the acquisition of a new striker?

A Modern Soccer Hierarchy: Executives Above Coaches

This represents a shift we are increasingly seeing at the elite levels of the game. Historically, teams mistakenly entrusted big footballing decisions to low-level employees like managers, scouts – even footballers. Maybe previously feasible for an up-and-coming, innovative manager with a philosophy and drive to join an organization and implement their plan through to completion. But how many companies have these guys established? What number of mass redundancies have they overseen? Far preferable to invest the real power where it belongs: the leadership tier, the casually dressed executives, the individuals with impressive LinkedIn profiles. It is wiser to determine the tactics in the boardroom and hire a coach who can tailor their methods accordingly. If coaches were formerly chefs, they have become more like delivery personnel: not really responsible for the product, yet ultimately answerable if it arrives poorly or leaks out of the box.

Nowadays, a coach's role has become less about crafting the philosophy and more about marketing it: the front-facing representative on the front desk, the public face of an organisation they have minimal power to change. A coach at Chelsea leads a team of very young players into the Champions League and wins domestic cups, and essentially gets sacked for speaking out. A manager at Celtic finds his standing damaged whereas the people who appointed him continue to make errors indefinitely.

The Modern Corporate Football: Responsibility Only for the Coaches

And possibly in a small way this represents neoliberalism in action: the elevation of a gilded overclass who are infallible, whose choices remain sacrosanct, whose errors can always be sacked away without explanation. Appoint the 3-4-3 coach and then dismiss him for using excessively that system. Bring in the process guy and later discard them for requiring excessive time. And most importantly show gratitude; for your modest increases in ticket costs, for the latest player acquisitions, for the reality that the adults – regardless of their expertise – remain in control.