Jason Wilcox - Director of Football

JPRouve said:
There should be a certain level of accountability but I don't necessarily agree with the way people respond to this situation. The most important thing is the process, Wilcox or anybody else should not be judged on the next appointment but on the quality of the process they led, especially since the failure of the previous appointment was that instead of following a sound process that accounted for everyone opinion Berrada and SJR picked someone that by most report didn't fit with any of the football directors plans, to the point where the former DOF was let go within 5 months of his appointment.

First Berrada and SJR need to take a step back and let the technicians they hired to manage the day to day come up with a strategy both when it comes to the coaching staff and the recruitment in relation to the club ambitions over time, it's only when that plan is formulated that Berrada and SJR can have the last say on a list of targets that Wilcox and Vivell already agreed upon.

And it's important to keep in mind that things are unlikely to go perfectly, there is always obstacles in the way, you accept it and deal with them as they come. You don't hide or pretend that everything will fix itself with time and money.
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JPRouve said:
I don't really see how you came to that conclusion, it makes no logical sense. What process are you talking about? If you are talking about the firing process then I would agree, I don't think that it was planned, it seems to be a reaction to Amorim rejecting the idea of being audited and his lack of openness when it comes to collaboration which is highlighted by his bizarre rant about being a manager not a coach.

Now when it comes to the hiring process it makes sense to bring an interim manager if you feel the need to assess your previous actions, understand your shortcomings and try to fix them, from that point you formulate a plan. It also makes sense if you have a plan and your preferred options aren't available until summer.

But it's also possible that they keep freestyling and are still full of it.
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You're right to separate the firing and hiring, but the sporting director's job is to get both right, not just half of it. It should be seamless!

If the firing was reactive (triggered by Amorim's criticism rather than the results), then monitoring and contingencies weren't in place. Either the management tolerated historically bad numbers way too long, or they only found standards when he talked back. It's terrible.

And if there were no contingencies for the firing, why assume they exist for the hiring? An interim makes sense when it's planned. This looks like scrambling. If they were monitoring properly, they'd have seen this coming months ago. The results were terrible, the tactics weren't working, the squad didn't fit. Good process means you're already talking to people, lining things up. Not going from "fine" to "he's out" to "uh, now what?" "Ole, Carrick or Fletcher?" Like seriously.

You said process matters most, and I agree. But process isn't just hiring. It's monitoring, having clear triggers, maintaining backup plans, smooth transitions. When half of it is chaos, why trust the other half will be any better?

I don't mean to single you out, I just thought you brought some good points earlier and I wanted to push back a bit
 
Suedesi said:
Why an interim? Are we just writing off the season?

Either we sacked Amorim for results—meaning contingencies are in place and they'd already been talking to heavyweight managers about vision, fit, and how they'd slot into the club structure, right?

Or, here's where it gets delicious, they sat through the worst managerial record in Premier League history (38.1% win rate, 1,23 ppg, 15th place finish, dumped by Grimsby Town), shrugged at all of it, then suddenly discovered standards when he criticized upper management.

Process™.

@JPRouve
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Its absolutely outrageous that they sacked Amorim on a whim without any contingency whatsoever. They should have been lining up replacements in the summer just in case.

It's like they sacked him and went "oh, er, let's see if any of our ex-players fancy a go for a bit". Shamblolic.
 
goldenboy said:
I don't know what it's like for transfers from between PL clubs, and I haven't found such a comparison, but I did stumble across this analysis of the extent to which player output drops when moving from other leagues. One would imagine transfers between PL clubs would on average fair better than from clubs in other leagues based on this:

"Analyst Tony ElHabr looked at how player performance changed when players changed leagues. Simply: Did their VAEP (Valuing Actions by Estimating Probabilities) go up or go down?

He studied the seasons from 2012 through 2020. And he found that when players moved to the Premier League from any of the Big Five leagues, their output decreased. LaLiga players suffered a 5% decrease, while Ligue 1 players dropped off by 10% and guys coming over from Serie A fell off by 12%. The biggest drop-off across the Big Five, though, came when players transferred in from the Bundesliga: a 17% drop-off, larger than players from Portugal and Brazil, and roughly equivalent to what happened when players made the step up from the Championship".

https://www.espn.com/soccer/story/_...-league-such-tough-leap-other-leagues-players
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That’s decent evidence, it’d be more interesting to see if the output eventually goes up if you follow the transferred players longer than their first premier league season.
 
Suedesi said:
You're right to separate the firing and hiring, but the sporting director's job is to get both right, not just half of it. It should be seamless!

If the firing was reactive (triggered by Amorim's criticism rather than the results), then monitoring and contingencies weren't in place. Either the management tolerated historically bad numbers way too long, or they only found standards when he talked back. It's terrible.

And if there were no contingencies for the firing, why assume they exist for the hiring? An interim makes sense when it's planned. This looks like scrambling. If they were monitoring properly, they'd have seen this coming months ago. The results were terrible, the tactics weren't working, the squad didn't fit. Good process means you're already talking to people, lining things up. Not going from "fine" to "he's out" to "uh, now what?" "Ole, Carrick or Fletcher?" Like seriously.

You said process matters most, and I agree. But process isn't just hiring. It's monitoring, having clear triggers, maintaining backup plans, smooth transitions. When half of it is chaos, why trust the other half will be any better?

I don't mean to single you out, I just thought you brought some good points earlier and I wanted to push back a bit
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I don't necessarily agree with some logical leaps that you make but that's not really important.

You do realize that I'm one of the most critical posters when it comes this direction? I said multiple times since October 2024 that these are bluffers who had no plan and have been freestyling since day one, I also believe that Amorim should have been let go sooner and of course it should have been planned. But where I disagree is with the idea that they should be rushing now that they addressed a problem they created by having no plan and not following any sound process.

PS: In reality I stated that INEOS were bluffers during the takeover talks.
 
Suedesi said:
Or, here's where it gets delicious, they sat through the worst managerial record in Premier League history (38.1% win rate, 1,23 ppg, 15th place finish, dumped by Grimsby Town), shrugged at all of it, then suddenly discovered standards when he criticized upper management.
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Or, they had concerns over what they were seeing on the pitch - which is why they talked to Amorim about it - but thought it still made sense to give him more time and see where it takes us, until he blew his top and that, added to his record, made the club's decision very easy.
 
Adz_99 said:
Its absolutely outrageous that they sacked Amorim on a whim without any contingency whatsoever. They should have been lining up replacements in the summer just in case.

It's like they sacked him and went "oh, er, let's see if any of our ex-players fancy a go for a bit". Shamblolic.
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Disagree. Look at the reaction from everyone around the club, the intent was to give Amorim time.

What's outrageous, to me, is that Amorim can be told in a private meeting "try having more than one string to your bow" and be so immature that he decides he's been personally attacked. He can then come out and basically say "I'm going to keep throwing away points for 18 more months unless they sack me" in a press conference before walking away with his full compensation package.

To be as clear as possible, having a manager say "I'm going to keep doing the thing that isn't working for 18 months" and still get his full comp is the bit that's outrageous to me.
 
Lash said:
Way to prove my point :lol:.

Edit: Second part I was referring to the scouting budget, not the transfer budget.
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It's the most ridiculous position you can hold. We shipped out 3 of our 4 forwards, would you rather us sign none? If your position was I'd rather have kept Hojlund and spent the money on a midfielder rather than Sesko then I'd absolutely agree, but your saying Amorim wasn't backed because we needed a midfielder rather than forwards, when we shipped out 3 of our forwards because he didn't want them, so the options are literally go into the season with only Zirkzee and sign midfielders or sign forwards to replace the ones he shipped out.
 
Most of us went into this season seeing qualification for the Champions League this year as being the optimistic best case scenario. We were level on points with the team in 5th - a position almost certain to come with CL qualification.

We sacked a 40 year old manager who spent much of his time here clearing up the crap others didn't have the guts to because Jason Wilcox threw a hissy-fit and wanted to pull rank. For all the contorting that's done to justify why this absolute no-mark has so much power at the club, I think history will judge this is as one of the biggest missteps in our modern history.

We went from long-term planning and stability to spending £10m and throwing everything away because there wasn't sufficient deference to this absolute no mark. I mean how dare he not listen to him. It's THE Jason Wilcox. He should have been calling him up at all hours to listen to his pearls of wisdom. "How should I line up at the weekend, Jason Wilcox. You've achieved so much in the game your insight would be so valuable"

Ugh! Horrendous state of affairs. Maybe we can hire David Batty to sit behind the dugout and tell the next manager which subs he should make and fire him if he's insubordinate. We need to be a modern football club, after all. The head coach should just hand out the bibs and leave real decisions to the experts. The fact a manager can select a captain without running it by Tim Flowers first shows how archaic things got here.
 
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Leftback99 said:
Making it up as he goes along. Doesn't have a clue.
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I don't know how rookie DoF can have this much power in club big as United? Guy fecked up nearly everything so far and he still has a job.
His ego is huge. He behaves like club is his football manager save.

“I’m a coach at heart. That’s a strength in my role now but also causes me a bit of a problem because I always want to interfere in what the managers are doing.”
That is why we will end with someone like Solskjaer who will be happy to be Wilcox's puppet. No way that some big name will accept to work with this plonker.
 
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I agree @Nyland

Plus Wilcox wasn’t even hired as the DOF, he just fell into that role because he was matey with Berrada.
 
That's why we need an elite coach. Imagine Wilcox trying to be clever with the likes of Tuchel or Conte?:lol: Unfortunately that is exactly why I don't believe our amateurs will go for a proven elite manager
 
Giggsyking said:
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FFS. The clown show just keeps on giving. Now I'm starting to understand why Amorim suddenly started harping on about being a Manager vs Coach in that disastrous press conference. And no wonder he left with a smile on his face, he's glad to be free of this clusterfeck.
 
If I remember correctly, didn't he also get involved with how we should play in the FA cup final?

Whilst I have no sympathy regarding Amorim, I foresee it being a problem even with a successful manager at some point.
 
JPRouve said:
I don't necessarily agree with some logical leaps that you make but that's not really important.

You do realize that I'm one of the most critical posters when it comes this direction? I said multiple times since October 2024 that these are bluffers who had no plan and have been freestyling since day one, I also believe that Amorim should have been let go sooner and of course it should have been planned. But where I disagree is with the idea that they should be rushing now that they addressed a problem they created by having no plan and not following any sound process.

PS: In reality I stated that INEOS were bluffers during the takeover talks.
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Fair point, I shouldn't have framed it like you were defending the process when you've been calling them bluffers since October '24. We're actually on the same page about the core problem.

I think where we might differ is what "not rushing" means here. I agree they shouldn't panic hire. But if they had any real process, they wouldn't need to choose between rushing and going interim. They'd have been ready because the signs were obvious for months. So the interim isn't really "taking time to do it right." It's more "we have no clue what we're doing so we need to buy time." Which lines up with what you've been saying about them freestyling from day one.

The optimistic read is they finally get it and need time to plan properly. The realistic read, based on their track record, is the interim is just more improvisation dressed up as being thoughtful.
 
Amir said:
Or, they had concerns over what they were seeing on the pitch - which is why they talked to Amorim about it - but thought it still made sense to give him more time and see where it takes us, until he blew his top and that, added to his record, made the club's decision very easy.
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So the record was fine until he got mouthy?
 
Suedesi said:
So the record was fine until he got mouthy?
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I'm pretty sure my words were very clear: they had concerns.

I'd say they really wanted to give him more time and, also tried to talk to him about what they saw as issues such as the formation. But as refused to listen - which was more than just "being mouthy" - there was no point in waiting.
 
Amir said:
I'm pretty sure my words were very clear: they had concerns.

I'd say they really wanted to give him more time and, also tried to talk to him about what they saw as issues such as the formation. But as refused to listen - which was more than just "being mouthy" - there was no point in waiting.
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So they had concerns about historically unprecedented failure but were cool giving him more time... until he wouldn't listen to their notes?

If 38% win percentage and 15th place weren't enough to pull the trigger, but pushing back on their formation ideas was, then the problem wasn't Amorim being stubborn.

It's that they never had real performance standards to begin with.

I think the reason they didn't fire him earlier is that it would've looked bad on them. They only fired him when he publicly made them look bad. Nothing to do with results, performance, club direction, it's all about optics and covering their asses.

feck em
 
I suspect the original Athletic briefs earlier in the week were Wilcox's side of the story, and now these Luckhurst briefs represent Amorim's side of the story.
 
Devarshi said:
FFS. The clown show just keeps on giving. Now I'm starting to understand why Amorim suddenly started harping on about being a Manager vs Coach in that disastrous press conference. And no wonder he left with a smile on his face, he's glad to be free of this clusterfeck.
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Rockets Redglare said:
Get the fat fecker out.
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What's wrong with this? Do you know what a director of football is meant to do?
 
pascell said:
The more I read, the more I feel Wilcox is nothing but a power tripping egotistical knobsack.

I hope he gets potted in summer and we move on from him.

How we arrived at the decision that he is more suited and capable than Ashworth, I'll never know.
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It’s funny: for all our missteps in the coaching market, we’ve never properly addrsssed the DOF issue.
 
We should probably drop him back to previous job and get an experienced DoF while were at it. If were going to waste the rest of the season on an interim then it buys us time to get someone better to do the hiring.
Dont care for agenda's and clique's and briefing against each other. Dump both and get professionals in.
 
Suedesi said:
So they had concerns about historically unprecedented failure but were cool giving him more time... until he wouldn't listen to their notes?
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Yes, and I don't see why that's such an issue. We were willing to give him time, not because he was doing brilliantly or that we were happy with results and performances, but because we were hoping things would evolve and improve - and so will he. Once we realised he's not even listening to suggestions, it became pointless.
 
Marcelinho87 said:
Seems there is an anti Wilcox agenda floating around, I ain't buying into it.
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Its quite funny really.
Countless posts saying he led or oversaw or hired Amorim directly. Then a over the top reactions at the latest tweet which is literally his job as technical director.
 
Judas said:
Amorim totally looked like the right hire at the time, the rewriting of history is classic football fan behaviour. It didn’t workout but it was right to go for it.
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In terms of personality yes, it felt like we finally found the one to lead the club forward. He talked really well and was doing great at Sporting, so I'm not faulting anyone for choosing him, however, one of the reasons Liverpool didn't go for him was that they didn't want to change their system as it was a deal breaker for him. Nobody at our club thought that this might be a problem, but at Liverpool they did, and they were right.

Honestly personally and most people here didn't have a problem either, any system is fine as long as it works, but it just didn't, and his tenure overall was terrible.

I really believe this won't be it for him, he'll learn a lot from this and will be a better manager for it, but this job was too big for him.
 
VP89 said:
What's wrong with this? Do you know what a director of football is meant to do?
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Do you?

A DOF is a DOF, not "like a manager". Their job should be looking after the big-picture, long-term prospects of the club. Making the right hires for the coaching positions, making sure the recruitment is in line with the club's philosophy, defining the club philosophy itself, etc. It shouldn't involve micro-managing the coach.

In this case, after bringing in a coach known for using a particular system, the clownshow decide they want to make him try something entirely different.

Amorim's failure and sacking is a huge indictment for the competency of the INEOS board - Berrada specifically who pushed for his appointment, and Wilcox and SJR for not being patient enough to see the season out after having backed the coach before in much more dire situations.
 
Devarshi said:
Do you?

A DOF is a DOF, not "like a manager". Their job should be looking after the big-picture, long-term prospects of the club. Making the right hires for the coaching positions, making sure the recruitment is in line with the club's philosophy, defining the club philosophy itself, etc. It shouldn't involve micro-managing the coach.

In this case, after bringing in a coach known for using a particular system, the clownshow decide they want to make him try something entirely different.

Amorim's failure and sacking is a huge indictment for the competency of the INEOS board - Berrada specifically who pushed for his appointment, and Wilcox and SJR for not being patient enough to see the season out after having backed the coach before in much more dire situations.
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Thats management.

The difference between a coach and a manager is literally your first paragraph.

Also Wilcox didn't bring Amorim in alone. He in fact had reservations before Amorim was picked precisely because of the formation infexibility. And the right thing for a competent technical director to do is to step in when you've given it more than a fair crack.

Il ask again, in what way is being a technical role not akin to the management side of the club?
 
Someone said:
In terms of personality yes, it felt like we finally found the one to lead the club forward. He talked really well and was doing great at Sporting, so I'm not faulting anyone for choosing him, however, one of the reasons Liverpool didn't go for him was that they didn't want to change their system as it was a deal breaker for him. Nobody at our club thought that this might be a problem, but at Liverpool they did, and they were right.

Honestly personally and most people here didn't have a problem either, any system is fine as long as it works, but it just didn't, and his tenure overall was terrible.

I really believe this won't be it for him, he'll learn a lot from this and will be a better manager for it, but this job was too big for him.
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Probably need to go with a good old boy as manager to keep ex-players from briefing against the existing team.
 
Someone said:
In terms of personality yes, it felt like we finally found the one to lead the club forward. He talked really well and was doing great at Sporting, so I'm not faulting anyone for choosing him, however, one of the reasons Liverpool didn't go for him was that they didn't want to change their system as it was a deal breaker for him. Nobody at our club thought that this might be a problem, but at Liverpool they did, and they were right.

Honestly personally and most people here didn't have a problem either, any system is fine as long as it works, but it just didn't, and his tenure overall was terrible.

I really believe this won't be it for him, he'll learn a lot from this and will be a better manager for it, but this job was too big for him.
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This is why I think the upper echelon at the club has to be held accountable for Amorim's hiring. The "best in class" DOF Ineos spent a fortune on in Ashworth held those exact reservations regarding Amorim and Ineos backed Wilcox and Berrada over him. The very person who they brought in to take charge of the footballing department didn't think the was a right fit. Serious questions regarding the futures of both Berrada and Wilcox have to be asked.
 
Wilcox is seriously out of depth but my concern lay with berrada. He gave the thumbs up for Amorim's deal and he gave Wilcox a promotion few months after starting with us. We need a serious CEO not on the job learner who wants to turn us in City 2.0
 
Zedd said:
This is why I think the upper echelon at the club has to be held accountable for Amorim's hiring. The "best in class" DOF Ineos spent a fortune on in Ashworth held those exact reservations regarding Amorim and Ineos backed Wilcox and Berrada over him. The very person who they brought in to take charge of the footballing department didn't think the was a right fit. Serious questions regarding the futures of both Berrada and Wilcox have to be asked.
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They also didn't have the courage and humility to admit that they had made a mistake (we all make them, there's no issue with that), if Amorim hadn't decided to basically get himself fired then they would have persisted with him at least until the summer and may well have continued into next season hoping with no evidence that their judgement might have been right.
 
Someone said:
In terms of personality yes, it felt like we finally found the one to lead the club forward. He talked really well and was doing great at Sporting, so I'm not faulting anyone for choosing him, however, one of the reasons Liverpool didn't go for him was that they didn't want to change their system as it was a deal breaker for him. Nobody at our club thought that this might be a problem, but at Liverpool they did, and they were right.

Honestly personally and most people here didn't have a problem either, any system is fine as long as it works, but it just didn't, and his tenure overall was terrible.

I really believe this won't be it for him, he'll learn a lot from this and will be a better manager for it, but this job was too big for him.
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The big difference being that Liverpool had an established style of play after so many years with Klopp, a PL and UCL won with this style of play. It made sense for Liverpool to look for continuity.
You could argue it made sense for United to try and overhaul things. Ultimately it didn’t work but choosing Amorim or not depended on very different factors for Liverpool and United
 
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