Who is Jason Wilcox? Man Utd's new Technical Director signed from Southampton

Jacque Talbot

• Updated: 24 Oct 2024 11:26 BST
• 4 min read

Manchester United appointed Jason Wilcox as their new technical director in April of 2024.

Amid the club's new restructuring under Sir Jim Ratcliffe's reign, Wilcox has arrived from Southampton - where he was director of football - after the Red Devils paid a compensation fee to the Championship side.

The revered football executive is one of the most highly regarded in the game. But just who is Wilcox?

Who is Jason Wilcox?

Wilcox's arrival at Old Trafford made a lot of sense, given he worked as Manchester City's academy director during Omar Berrada's time at the Etihad Stadium.

Berrada is now CEO at Man Utd and will link up with Wilcox once again, with the former Blackburn Rovers player leaving his role at Southampton after just nine months to move to Old Trafford.

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Wilcox started his journey to Man Utd as a player, earning three caps for England and contributing significantly to Blackburn's Premier League triumph in the 1994/95 season.

Wilcox then joined Man City's academy coaching staff in 2012, before embarking on a tenure as head coach of the men's under-18s side. His success in that position led to his appointment as Academy Director in October 2017.

He left the Citizens in January 2023 to become the director of football at Southampton. In his first summer transfer window at St Mary's, Wilcox used his connections with the reigning Premier League champions to bring in the likes of Taylor Harwood-Bellis (loan) and Shea Charles (€12.3m) as Southampton looked to springboard back into the Premier League.

READ MORE: Why Man Utd hired former Man City chief Omar Berrada

Wilcox is very much someone who likes players with great technical ability - and his network in England knows no bounds.

When he joined Southampton, Wilcox admitted: "I’ve not come here trying to bring Manchester City down south. That’s not what I’m going to do.

“My job is to come in and make sure we’ve got alignment where the first team manager plays a certain way, the academy teams play a certain way and then we can transition creating this pathway for the younger players.

"That’s what I’m here to do. I think when you don’t have alignment and you have inconsistency of work, it takes you a lot longer to get there and you’re being reactive all the time.

“I’ve been brought now for the last 12 years on a complete alignment from top to bottom, from the board to the director of football, to the first team manager and to the academy director.

“And then when you get that alignment of thinking and you understand profiles of players, you understand what’s happening on the pitch, you can build and you can grow and even when you’re losing football matches, you can actually understand where you’re going wrong or when you win football matches, you can understand what you’re doing really well and have clear measures. And that’s something that I’m looking to implement.”

Man Utd confirmed at the time that Wilcox "will work with all technical areas of the football department to achieve the highest standards of performance."

During the course of the 2024 summer transfer window, Wilcox vetoed Ten Hag's move for Sofyan Amrabat, according to the player. The midfielder had a pretty underwhelming loan spell from Fiorentina during the 2023-24 season, but the manager wanted to make the move permanent.

"I have a special relationship with Ten Hag since I was a 20-year-old at Utrecht," Amrabat told the Daily Mail. "He wanted to keep me this summer so I wish him the best but not for Thursday. I hope they lose."

Asked why he did not seal a permanent move to United, Amrabat added: "The only thing that I want to say is that you have to ask Mr Wilcox."