Amorim's Fatal Error? Challenging Wilcox and the Unassailable Leadership Class

Iturns out he was able to withstand defeat by lower-league opposition. He weathered an important European final against a particularly poor Tottenham teams for many years. He withstood home defeats against West Ham and Wolves, finishing 15th, his rigid approach, undermining the team's best homegrown talent, the 32% win rate, labeling his team the worst in Manchester United history. Yet, there existed a single opponent against whom Ruben Amorim would not be allowed to dance. You come at the sporting director, and you best not miss.

In truth, this whole painful saga appears to portray Jason Wilcox in a different perspective. It may have been easy, given his nine months in a similar role with the Saints, to regard Jason Wilcox as little more than a drudge within the club's structure: an individual whose appointment was due as much to his friendship with ex-colleague Omar Berrada as any demonstrable skill. How mistaken everyone was. In brilliantly outsmarting the club's celebrated manager, as he outmanoeuvred the hapless Dan Ashworth earlier, Jason Wilcox has demonstrated as one of the sport’s true generals: a strategic mind that the club's mid-table rivals are now justifiably concerned.

A Strategic Conflict Over Formation and Ideology

To illustrate, this was the director who having been part of the leadership 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 3-4-3. Naturally, these entreaties met a certain resistance. However, these judgements carry more weight when issued from the mouth of a man the impeccable football pedigree of Jason Wilcox, a veteran of international appearances and a contributor to a title-winning side decades past.

Maybe eventually he may be persuaded to outline his thought processes to the rest of us. Maybe one day he might be asked regarding why the coach is departing with full compensation, without any penalty clause activated. The director seldom speaks publicly, for excellent reasons. The true intellectuals of this sport – men like Jason Wilcox – function on a plane exceeding our mundane comprehension. Were he to speak, most likely we would perceive would be high-frequency signals and complex calculations. Desiring an explanation is not quite equivalent to being ready to receive.

The Supreme Power Behind Command

But of course, by focusing our attention on Jason Wilcox we are obscuring the real power behind the club's current leadership. Jason Wilcox is, in reality, merely executing the directives of his ultimate line manager Sir Jim Ratcliffe, who privately has emphasized his desire for a back four. It is reported, Ratcliffe has also suggested deploying the forward in a wing-back role. The owner is eager for United to embrace data science and metrics. Per reports, during a leadership summit soon after his investment, he announced that the team's approach to football “shall be determined in this room”.

After all, Ratcliffe is an expert in these intricate football matters, leveraging his background in industry and sailing. Most importantly he is immensely wealthy, and it is known, the wealthy are superior: more perceptive, sagacious, more tactically astute, fundamentally better. Whom else would you trust to oversee a strategic plan of cost-cutting, the construction of a new stadium that appears a lot like an abstract design, the acquisition of Benjamin Sesko?

A New Soccer Hierarchy: Executives Above Managers

This is a trend we are increasingly seeing at the elite levels football. Historically, clubs foolishly delegated major sporting choices to subordinate staff like managers, scouts – even footballers. Maybe previously possible for a young, visionary coach with a philosophy and drive to go into an organization and see their vision supported to fruition. But how many businesses have these guys established? What number of mass redundancies have they overseen? Better by far to invest genuine authority where it belongs: the leadership tier, the open-necked shirt brigade, the individuals with the jaw-dropping LinkedIn profiles. It is wiser to decide the tactics in the boardroom and hire someone who will adapt their methods accordingly. If managers were formerly chefs, they have become more akin to Deliveroo drivers: not responsible for the product, but still ultimately answerable if it arrives poorly or leaks out to meet standards.

Nowadays, a coach's role has become not about defining the vision and more about selling it: the receptionist of the operation, the visible figurehead for a club they can do little to change. A coach at Chelsea leads a team of literal children into the Champions League and wins two medium-sized trophies, and essentially gets sacked for speaking out. A manager at Celtic finds his reputation ruined whereas the people who hired him continue to make errors another day.

A Neoliberal Football: Responsibility Only for the Coaches

And perhaps on some microcosmic level this is simply neoliberalism at work: the elevation of a privileged elite who are infallible, whose choices are always sacrosanct, whose mistakes can invariably be sacked away without explanation. Appoint the system coach only to dismiss them for playing excessively that system. Bring in the process guy and later discard him for requiring excessive time. And most importantly be grateful; for the incremental increases in ticket costs, for your new summer signings, for the fact that the adults – regardless of their expertise – are in charge.