Clever character & a comedian! What Man Utd director of football Jason Wilcox is really like - as told by Premier League title-winning Blackburn team-mate

Bolton-born Wilcox graduated from the youth system at Blackburn to become a senior star for Rovers. He took in over 270 appearances during a 10-year stint in the first-team, helping to land the English top-flight crown in 1994-95. He also earned three caps for the Three Lions.

He stepped away from football after retiring in 2006 - following stints at Leeds, Leicester and Blackpool - but returned to familiar surroundings in 2012 when joining the academy coaching staff at Manchester City. He went on to become a director there.

Southampton lured him to St Mary’s in January 2023, with his reputation as a director of football being enhanced there. He now fills the same post at Manchester United, having initially joined them as a technical director in April 2024.

The 55-year-old has a big say in important recruitment decisions on the field and in the dugout - with Michael Carrick being picked to succeed Ruben Amorim - and finds himself operating under the brightest of spotlights.

Thick skin is required in order to thrive in such a demanding, results-driven business, but what kind of character is Wilcox. When that question was put to Hendry, the former Blackburn defender - speaking in association with IvyBet - told GOAL: “He's obviously a very clever character. He was a clever footballer.

“Jason was good. Jason was very effective as a winger, with Jason on the left, Stuart Ripley on the right. And when you've got two strikers, Alan Shearer and Chris Sutton, just feeding off what they provided, that's why these lads more or less won Blackburn the Premiership. But it was supply as well.

“Jason's position, I would have never thought, to be fair, that may have happened, that he would have ended up in that position. But then he did do well after his career. He did a business and then he was at Man City academy, grew at the Man City Academy to the head of the Academy, got headhunted off to Southampton and from Southampton all the way along, he's been doing really well.

“And that doesn't surprise me because he was a clever footballer. Sometimes good, great footballers don't make great coaches and great managers. But then Jason's gone down a different path.

“I'm sure he had a good private business going on in his life and he ended up at City and growing, coming through the ranks there at Man City academy as a coach and then fulfilling all these different things.

“He's a funny guy though. Jason was very sharp, very quick witted. He did a really good take on Ray Harford and Kenny [Dalglish]. He did a couple of good takes on the Gaffer and Ray, God rest his soul. And even Tony Parkes as well, God rest his soul. Jason was a comedian, if I'm being honest.”

Wilcox is now helping to dictate transfer business at Old Trafford. Such roles have attracted criticism down the years, as they have become ever more prevalent, but what is the best approach?

Faced with that poser, as managers see big decisions made above their heads, Hendry added: “The game's moved on. So the recruitment, that's a job in itself.

“To a layman, you're thinking of all these different things, criteria that players have got, and they go into everything these days at the top level, they go into everything - they go on about their social aspects, their upbringing, they go so far back into things. And I do understand, but I don't know how much of that really affects that individual as a footballer.

“I do think that the manager, the coach, the man, the guy that's picking the team on the Saturday to play that game should have an input into who they have in the squad. And I know that's not always the case because there's funding and everything else, you've got so many different things to think about.

“And what I mean by funding is what the budget is they've got to spend, the wages, and everything else, all that's going to be taken into consideration because the club's got to be run properly. I understand that as well as, but I do think the main man should have a bit of an influence as to what he's looking to bring into his squad.”

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