The Coach's Critical Mistake? Challenging The Executives and an Infallible Leadership Class

Turns out the manager was able to withstand losing against lower-league opposition. He weathered a decisive 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, his rigid approach, undermining some of the club’s most promising academy products, the 32% win rate, labeling the squad the poorest in Manchester United history. But there was a single opponent with whom the Portuguese coach would not be allowed to tango. You come at Jason Wilcox, you had better succeed.

And frankly, this entire painful saga appears to portray the director in a whole new light. It may have been easy, given his brief stint of experience at Southampton, to view Jason Wilcox as little more than a drudge in the United exoskeleton: an individual whose appointment was due largely to his friendship with ex-colleague Omar Berrada as any demonstrable skill. How mistaken everyone was. In brilliantly outmanoeuvring United’s feted manager, as he outmanoeuvred the hapless Dan Ashworth earlier, Jason Wilcox has demonstrated as one of the sport’s strategic masterminds: a tactical intellect that United’s mid-table rivals are now rightly wary.

A Tactical Conflict Over Formation & Ideology

For example, this was the director who being involved in the hierarchy that hired the 3-4-3 fundamentalist Amorim originally, was instrumental in trying to persuade Amorim to ditch his favored 3-4-3. Naturally, these pleas met a certain resistance. But perhaps these judgements hold greater authority when issued by a man of a man the impeccable soccer background he possesses, a veteran of three England caps and a role in a title-winning side decades past.

Maybe eventually Jason Wilcox may be persuaded to explain his thought processes to the rest of us. Maybe one day questions may arise regarding why the coach is departing with a full payout, without any compensation reduction clause activated. The director seldom speaks in public, and with very good reason. The real thinkers in football – men like him – simply operate on a plane beyond our own prosaic understanding. Were he to speak, probably we would perceive is a series of high-frequency signals and complex calculations. Wanting is not equivalent to being prepared to comprehend it.

The Ultimate Authority Behind the Throne

Naturally, in training our focus on Jason Wilcox we are obscuring the true genius behind the club's current leadership. The director is, after all, simply carrying out the commands of his superior Sir Jim Ratcliffe, who privately has emphasized his desire for a four-man defense. According to reports, the owner has also suggested playing Bryan Mbeumo in a wing-back role. The owner is eager for the club to adopt data science and analytics. According to ESPN, during a leadership summit soon after his minority ownership, he announced that the team's approach of play “will be decided in this room”.

After all, Sir Jim is a specialist in these intricate footballing stuff, drawing from his background in industry and yachting. Above all he remains immensely wealthy, and it is known, the rich are the best of us: more perceptive, more wise, more tactically astute, simply better. Who else could one trust to manage a strategic plan of cost-cutting, the building of a modern arena that appears similar to someone’s leftover knitting, the signing of a new striker?

A New Soccer Hierarchy: Executives Above Coaches

This is a trend that is becoming prevalent in top-tier football. For decades, clubs foolishly delegated major sporting choices to low-level employees like managers, talent spotters – even footballers. Maybe previously feasible for an up-and-coming, visionary coach with a philosophy and energy to join an organization and see their vision through to completion. Yet how many businesses have such individuals set up? How many large-scale layoffs have they overseen? Far preferable to place genuine authority where it belongs: the executive class, the casually dressed executives, the guys with impressive LinkedIn profiles. Better by far to determine the tactics by the directors and hire someone who can tailor their offering accordingly. If managers were once chefs, they have become more like Deliveroo drivers: not responsible for the food, but still ultimately answerable should it be delivered cold or fails to meet standards.

In the meantime, their job has become less about defining the vision and more about marketing it: the front-facing representative of the operation, the visible figurehead of an organisation they have minimal power to change. Enzo Maresca takes a squad of literal children into the Champions League and secures two medium-sized trophies, and effectively gets sacked for speaking out. A manager at Celtic finds his standing damaged while those individuals who hired him live to blunder indefinitely.

The Neoliberal Football: Responsibility Only for the Coaches

And perhaps in a small way this is simply neoliberalism at work: the rise of a gilded elite who can never be wrong, whose choices remain sacrosanct, whose mistakes can invariably be resolved by sacking without explanation. Hire the 3-4-3 coach and then fire him for using too much 3-4-3. Hire the process guy and then discard him for taking too long. And above all show gratitude; for your modest increases in ticket costs, for your new player acquisitions, for the reality that the adults – regardless of their expertise – remain in control.