Transpired he endured losing against Grimsby. He weathered losing a crucial European final versus a particularly poor Spurs sides in living memory. He withstood losing at home against West Ham and Wolves, finishing 15th, his rigid approach, laying waste to some of the club’s best homegrown talent, the 32% win rate, calling the squad the worst the club has ever seen. But there was a single opponent against whom Ruben Amorim was not permitted to engage. You come at the sporting director, and you best not miss.
Regrettably, similar to numerous Premiership defender in Blackburn’s championship 1994-95 season, the coach came at Jason Wilcox and appears to have missed. Even the most casual observer can see the paradoxical situation: a manager who frequently berated at his players for failing in individual battles crumbling when confronted by the intense pressure and animal charisma of a the Premier League’s most intimidating football executives.
And frankly, this entire painful saga seems to paint the director in a whole new light. It may have been easy, based on his brief stint in a similar role at Southampton, to regard him as little more than a drudge within the club's structure: an individual who owed his position as much to his friendship with his former boss a fellow executive as any demonstrable skill. How wrong we all were. By masterfully outsmarting United’s feted head coach, just as he bested the unfortunate a previous executive before him, he has proved himself as one of football's true generals: a tactical intellect that United’s competitors will now be justifiably concerned.
For example, it was Jason Wilcox who having been part of the leadership that appointed 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 were resisted. But perhaps these judgements carry more weight when delivered from the mouth with the impeccable football pedigree he possesses, a veteran of three England caps and a role in a title-winning side decades past.
Maybe eventually Jason Wilcox might agree to outline his thought processes publicly. Maybe one day he might be asked regarding why the coach is walking away with full compensation, with no compensation reduction clause in place. But Jason Wilcox speaks rarely in public, for excellent reasons. The real thinkers in football – individuals such as Jason Wilcox – simply operate on a plane beyond our own prosaic understanding. If he ever did speak, probably all we would hear would be ultrasonic blips and complex calculations. Desiring an explanation is not quite equivalent to being ready to comprehend it.
Naturally, in training our focus on Jason Wilcox we overlook the real power behind the modern United throne. Jason Wilcox is, after all, simply carrying out the directives of his ultimate superior the billionaire owner, who privately has emphasized his preference for a back four. According to reports, the owner has also proposed deploying the forward in a wing-back role. The owner is eager for the club to embrace analytics and analytics. According to ESPN, during a leadership summit soon after his investment, he declared that the team's approach of play “will be determined in this room”.
Ultimately, Sir Jim is an expert in this technical football matters, drawing from his background in industry and sailing. Most importantly he is incredibly rich, and as we all know, the wealthy are the best of us: more insightful, sagacious, more tactically astute, fundamentally better. Who else would you trust to oversee a strategic plan of cost-cutting, the construction of a modern arena that looks a lot like someone’s leftover knitting, the signing of Benjamin Sesko?
This is a trend that is becoming prevalent at the elite levels of the game. Historically, clubs foolishly delegated big footballing decisions to subordinate staff such as coaches, scouts – players themselves. Maybe previously possible for an up-and-coming, visionary coach with ideas and drive to join a club and implement their plan supported to fruition. Yet how many companies have these guys established? How many large-scale layoffs have they overseen? Better by far to place the real power where it belongs: the leadership tier, the open-necked shirt brigade, the individuals with the jaw-dropping LinkedIn profiles. Better by far to decide the tactics in the boardroom and hire a coach who can tailor their offering accordingly. If coaches were formerly chefs, they have become more like delivery personnel: not responsible for the food, yet ultimately answerable should it be delivered poorly or leaks out to meet standards.
Nowadays, a coach's role has become not about defining the vision and more about marketing it: the front-facing representative of the operation, the visible figurehead for a club they can do little to change. A coach at Chelsea takes a squad of literal children into Europe and wins two medium-sized trophies, and effectively is dismissed for talking. Wilfried Nancy finds his reputation ruined while those individuals who appointed him continue to make errors another day.
And possibly on some microcosmic level this represents corporate governance in action: the elevation of a gilded elite who are infallible, whose decisions are always untouchable, whose errors can invariably be resolved by sacking without justification. Appoint the system coach only to fire him for using excessively 3-4-3. Bring in the process guy and later bin him for taking excessive time. And above all be grateful; for the incremental increases in ticket costs, for your new player acquisitions, for the fact that the grownups – regardless of their expertise – remain in control.
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