The Coach's Fatal Mistake? Taking On The Executives and the Unassailable Leadership Tier

Transpired Ruben Amorim was able to withstand defeat by lower-league opposition. Survive an important continental showpiece against one of the worst Spurs sides in living memory. He withstood losing at home against West Ham and Wolves, a lowly league position, the tactical inflexibility, laying waste to the team's most promising homegrown talent, the 32% win rate, labeling his team the poorest the club has ever seen. Yet, there existed one adversary against whom the Portuguese coach was not permitted to tango. You come at the sporting director, and you best not miss.

And frankly, this whole painful saga seems to paint the director in a whole new light. It may have been tempting, based on his nine months in a similar role with the Saints, to regard him as merely a drudge in the United exoskeleton: a man whose appointment was due largely to his friendship with ex-colleague a fellow executive rather than any demonstrable skill. How mistaken we all were. In brilliantly outsmarting the club's celebrated head coach, as he outmanoeuvred the unfortunate Dan Ashworth earlier, Jason Wilcox has proved himself to be among football's true generals: a strategic mind that the club's competitors are now rightly wary.

The Tactical Clash Regarding Formation and Ideology

To illustrate, it was the director , after having been part of the leadership that hired the rigid 3-4-3 advocate the coach in the first place, was instrumental in trying to persuade Amorim to ditch his beloved formation. Unsurprisingly, these pleas were resisted. But perhaps such directives carry more weight when delivered from the mouth of a man the impeccable soccer background of Jason Wilcox, a veteran of international appearances and a role in a championship team decades past.

Perhaps in time he might agree to explain his thought processes to the rest of us. Perhaps at some point he might be asked why Amorim is walking away with full compensation, without any compensation reduction clause activated. But Jason Wilcox speaks rarely in public, for excellent reasons. The true intellectuals in football – men like Jason Wilcox – function at a level beyond our own prosaic understanding. If he ever did speak, probably we would perceive is a series of ultrasonic blips and four-dimensional whirring. Wanting is not the same as being prepared to receive.

An Ultimate Authority Behind the Throne

But of course, by focusing our attention on the sporting director we overlook the real power behind the modern United throne. Jason Wilcox is, after all, merely executing the commands of his line manager the billionaire owner, who privately has emphasized his desire for a back four. According to reports, Ratcliffe has also suggested deploying the forward as a right wing-back. Ratcliffe is keen for United to adopt analytics and metrics. According to ESPN, in an executive meeting soon after his minority ownership, he announced that United’s style of play “shall be decided by this group”.

Ultimately, Ratcliffe is a specialist in these intricate footballing stuff, leveraging his previous experience in petrochemicals and yachting. Most importantly he is incredibly rich, and as we all know, the rich are superior: more insightful, more wise, more tactically astute, fundamentally better. Who else would you trust to manage a strategic plan of cost-cutting, the construction of a new stadium that appears similar to someone’s leftover knitting, the acquisition of a new striker?

The Modern Soccer Hierarchy: Directors Above Coaches

This is a trend that is becoming prevalent at the elite levels football. For decades, clubs foolishly delegated major sporting choices to low-level employees like managers, talent spotters – players themselves. Perhaps it was once feasible for an up-and-coming, innovative manager with a philosophy and energy to join an organization and see their vision supported to fruition. Yet how many companies have these guys established? How many large-scale layoffs have they managed? Better by far to place the real power where it rightly belongs: the executive class, the casually dressed executives, the individuals with impressive LinkedIn profiles. Better by far to determine the tactics by the directors and appoint someone who will adapt their offering to suit. If coaches were once chefs, they have become more akin to Deliveroo drivers: not responsible for the food, but still finally accountable if it arrives poorly or leaks out of the box.

Nowadays, a coach's role has become not about crafting the philosophy 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 very young players into Europe and secures two medium-sized trophies, and effectively is dismissed for talking. A manager at Celtic finds his standing damaged whereas the people who hired him continue to make errors indefinitely.

The Modern Corporate Football: Responsibility for the Coaches

And possibly on some microcosmic level this represents corporate governance at work: the rise of a privileged elite who can never be wrong, whose decisions remain untouchable, whose errors can invariably be resolved by sacking without explanation. Hire the system coach and then dismiss them for playing excessively that system. Hire the process guy and then discard him for taking excessive time. And above all show gratitude; for your modest increases in ticket costs, for your new player acquisitions, for the fact that the grownups – regardless of their expertise – remain in control.