Tbecame clear the manager was able to withstand losing against Grimsby. Survive losing a crucial European final against one of the worst Spurs sides for many years. He could survive losing at home to domestic rivals, finishing 15th, his rigid approach, laying waste to some of the club’s best academy products, a poor winning percentage, labeling the squad the poorest in Manchester United history. Yet, there existed a single opponent against whom Ruben Amorim was not permitted to tango. If you challenge the sporting director, you had better succeed.
Regrettably, similar to numerous Premiership defender in Blackburn’s title-winning campaign, the coach came at Jason Wilcox and seems to have missed. Even the most distracted of readers will notice the paradoxical situation: a manager who frequently berated his squad for failing in individual battles succumbing when confronted by the intense pressure and animal charisma of a England's top division's most intimidating sporting directors.
In truth, this entire painful saga seems to paint Jason Wilcox in a whole new light. Perhaps it might have been tempting, based on his nine months in a similar role at Southampton, to view him as merely a functionary within the club's structure: a man who owed his position largely to his friendship with his former boss Omar Berrada as any verifiable talent. How wrong we all were. In brilliantly outsmarting United’s feted manager, just as he bested the hapless a previous executive earlier, he has proved himself to be among the sport’s true generals: a strategic mind that the club's competitors will now be justifiably concerned.
To illustrate, it was the director who having been part of the leadership that hired the 3-4-3 fundamentalist Amorim originally, was instrumental in attempting to convince Amorim to ditch his beloved formation. Naturally, these entreaties were resisted. However, these judgements hold greater authority when delivered from the mouth with the unimpeachable football pedigree of Jason Wilcox, holder of three England caps and a contributor to a championship team decades past.
Perhaps in time he might agree to explain his reasoning publicly. Maybe one day he might be asked why Amorim is walking away with full compensation, with no compensation reduction clause in place. The director seldom speaks in public, and with very good reason. The true intellectuals of this sport – individuals such as him – simply operate on a plane exceeding our mundane comprehension. Were he to speak, probably all we would hear is a series of high-frequency signals and four-dimensional whirring. Desiring an explanation is not quite equivalent to being prepared to receive.
Naturally, in training our focus on the sporting director we are obscuring the real power behind the club's current leadership. The director is, after all, simply carrying out the directives of his ultimate line manager the billionaire owner, who in private has made very clear his preference for a back four. It is reported, the owner has also proposed deploying the forward as a right wing-back. The owner is eager for United to adopt analytics and analytics. Per reports, in an executive meeting soon after his investment, he declared that United’s style of play “shall be determined in this room”.
Ultimately, Ratcliffe is a specialist in these intricate footballing stuff, leveraging his background in petrochemicals and sailing. Above all he is incredibly rich, and as we all know, the rich are superior: more insightful, more wise, strategically brilliant, fundamentally better. Whom else could one trust to oversee a strategic plan of austerity, the construction of a modern arena that appears similar to someone’s leftover knitting, the signing of a new striker?
This represents a shift we are increasingly seeing at the elite levels of the game. For decades, teams mistakenly delegated big footballing decisions to low-level employees like managers, talent spotters – players themselves. Perhaps it was once feasible for a young, innovative manager with a philosophy and energy to join a club and see their vision through to completion. Yet how many companies have such individuals set up? How many large-scale layoffs have they overseen? Far preferable to place the real power where it belongs: the executive class, the open-necked shirt brigade, the individuals with the jaw-dropping professional resumes. It is wiser to determine the strategy in the boardroom and appoint a coach who will adapt their methods to suit. If coaches were formerly chefs, they are now more akin to Deliveroo drivers: not really creating the food, but still finally accountable should it be delivered poorly or leaks out of the box.
In the meantime, their job 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 can do little to change. Enzo Maresca takes a squad of very young players into Europe and wins domestic cups, and effectively is dismissed for speaking out. A manager at Celtic sees his reputation ruined while the people who appointed him continue to make errors indefinitely.
And possibly on some microcosmic level this represents corporate governance in action: the rise of a privileged overclass who can never be wrong, whose choices are always untouchable, whose mistakes can always be resolved by sacking without justification. Hire the system 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 above all be grateful; for the incremental increases in ticket costs, for your new summer signings, for the reality that the grownups – however well qualified – remain in control.
Elena Hartwell is a multidisciplinary artist and educator passionate about fostering creative communities in London.