🔗 Share this article

Iturns out the manager could survive losing against Grimsby. He weathered a decisive continental showpiece against a particularly poor Spurs sides in living memory. He could survive losing at home against West Ham and Wolves, finishing 15th, an unwavering system, undermining the team's best homegrown talent, a poor winning percentage, labeling the squad the poorest the club has ever seen. But there was a single opponent against whom the Portuguese coach would not be allowed to tango. You come at the sporting director, you had better succeed.

Regrettably, like many a top-flight right-back during Blackburn Rovers' championship campaign, Amorim came at the executive and appears to have missed. The most casual observer can see the paradoxical situation: a coach who often railed at his players for failing in one-on-one duels crumbling in the face of the white heat and animal charisma of a England's top division's most intimidating sporting directors.

And frankly, this whole bruising episode seems to paint Jason Wilcox in a whole new light. Perhaps it might have been tempting, based on his brief stint of experience at Southampton, to regard Jason Wilcox as little more than a functionary in the United exoskeleton: a man who owed his position as much to his friendship with his former boss a fellow executive as any verifiable talent. How wrong we all were. In brilliantly outmanoeuvring the club's celebrated manager, as he outmanoeuvred the hapless a previous executive earlier, he has demonstrated to be among the sport’s true generals: a tactical intellect of which the club's competitors will now be rightly wary.

The Tactical Conflict Over System and Philosophy

To illustrate, this was the director who being involved in the leadership that appointed the rigid 3-4-3 advocate the coach originally, played a key role in attempting to convince him to ditch his favored 3-4-3. Unsurprisingly, these pleas were resisted. But perhaps such directives carry more weight when issued from the mouth of a man the impeccable soccer background he possesses, a veteran of three England caps and a contributor to a title-winning side from 31 years ago.

Perhaps in time Jason Wilcox might agree to explain his reasoning publicly. Perhaps at some point questions may arise why Amorim is walking away with a full payout, with no compensation reduction clause in place. But Jason Wilcox seldom speaks in public, for excellent reasons. The real thinkers in football – men like Jason Wilcox – function at a level beyond our own prosaic understanding. Were he to speak, most likely all we would hear is a series of high-frequency signals and four-dimensional whirring. Desiring an explanation is not quite the same as being ready to receive.

An Ultimate Authority In the Throne

But of course, in training our focus on Jason Wilcox we are obscuring the real power behind the club's current leadership. The director is, in reality, merely executing the commands of his ultimate superior the billionaire owner, who in private has emphasized his desire for a back four. It is reported, the owner has also suggested deploying the forward as a right wing-back. The owner is eager for the club to adopt analytics and analytics. According to ESPN, during a leadership summit early in 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 this technical footballing stuff, leveraging his background in industry and sailing. Most importantly he is incredibly rich, and it is known, the rich are the best of us: more insightful, sagacious, strategically brilliant, fundamentally superior. Who else would you trust to oversee an enlightened programme of cost-cutting, the construction of a modern arena that looks similar to an abstract design, the acquisition of Benjamin Sesko?

The New Football Order: Executives Over Managers

This represents a shift that is becoming prevalent at the elite levels of the game. For decades, clubs foolishly entrusted big footballing decisions to low-level employees like managers, scouts – even footballers. Maybe previously feasible for a young, innovative manager with ideas and energy to go into an organization and implement their plan supported to fruition. But how many businesses have such individuals established? What number of mass redundancies have they managed? Far preferable to invest the real power where it belongs: the executive class, the casually dressed executives, the guys with impressive LinkedIn profiles. It is wiser to determine the tactics in the boardroom and hire a coach who will adapt their methods to suit. If managers were formerly chefs, they have become more like delivery personnel: not responsible for the food, but still finally accountable should it be delivered poorly or leaks out of the box.

In the meantime, their job is increasingly less about crafting the philosophy and more about marketing it: the front-facing representative on the front desk, the visible figurehead for a club they can do little to influence. Enzo Maresca leads a team of very young players into the Champions League and wins domestic cups, and essentially is dismissed for talking. A manager at Celtic finds his reputation ruined whereas the people who appointed him live to blunder indefinitely.

The Neoliberal Football: Accountability Only for the Few

And perhaps in a small way this is simply corporate governance at work: the elevation of a gilded overclass who can never be wrong, whose choices are always sacrosanct, whose mistakes can invariably be resolved by sacking without explanation. Appoint the system coach and then dismiss them for playing excessively 3-4-3. Hire the process guy and later discard them for taking excessive time. 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 – are in charge.