He was a rapid left-winger in the 1990s and 2000s who won the Premier League with Blackburn Rovers before moving to Leeds United.
But he would probably be more of a tough quiz question than a household name: which title-winner won three England caps in three different seasons over a four-year period?
Yet Jason Wilcox has now, at the age of 54, reached great prominence after a power battle which led to the departure of manager Ruben Amorim from Manchester United.
So who is the Red Devils’ director of football, how did he rise to such a key role and why has there been some criticism of his Manchester City links?
In a rare media appearance, for the in-house Inside Carrington podcast at the beginning of November, Wilcox explained how he deals with the intense stress and pressure of his job.
“My wife will know when I am bogged down with frustration,” he explained. “When I re-energise, I do it on my own. Me and the dog, walking.”
We don’t know whether the Wilcox family dog has been going out more than usual over the past few days, but it would be no surprise if its owner has needed to take a breath.
As a player, good enough to be a significant part of Blackburn’s title-winning team in 1995, Wilcox says he was loud and energetic, but, by his own admission, this was an ‘alter ego’ and he is naturally “a quiet guy”.
It is not quite two years since Wilcox joined Manchester United, initially as technical director, then as director of football following the swift departure of Dan Ashworth.
But Wilcox knows quiet is not a word associated with the club and, in the wake of Amorim’s exit and the search for a successor, he is in the spotlight.
He could have expected it.
In the overall structure at Old Trafford, once you have gone past the joint ownership of the Glazer family and Sir Jim Ratcliffe, the heavyweight figures of chief executive Omar Berrada, chief financial officer Roger Bell and the football club board, Wilcox is about as senior as it gets.
In addition to his in-house podcast appearance, there is one other extended chat with Wilcox that has been available for public viewing.
Despite it coming just days after the 3-0 defeat at Manchester City in September, he honoured a commitment to speak at the 40th anniversary dinner of United’s past players.
Club officials thought it was a private event and Wilcox’s Q&A session at Old Trafford would not be released. However, it was filmed and uploaded on to the internet.
The ‘news’ element was widely reported at the time, including by BBC Sport.
“I really feel it is not ‘will we win again?’ but ‘when we win again’,” he told the audience. “I just pray we get the opportunity to turn it round.”
Watching the full 13 minutes back, there is another snippet which Wilcox probably wishes did not exist as he talks, openly, about the difficulties of transitioning out of the regimented world of playing after a 17-year career, when he retired in 2006.
“I wanted to spend some time with my family, but then the phone stops ringing and you lose your identity,” he said.
“It is like coming out of the military. You belong to something, you have your routine, then you belong to nothing.
“I am a coach at heart. I am a coach inside even though I know I have a different job now. That is a strength in my role but it also causes me a bit of a problem because I always want to interfere in what the managers are doing.”
One person’s interference is another’s constructive feedback, which is how Wilcox’s exchange with Amorim before the draw at Leeds at the weekend has been interpreted.
It was supposed to be a chat about the transfer window but the topic became tactics.
Points were made about the wisdom of switching formations and returning to a back three for a meeting with bottom-of-the-table Wolves at the end of December.
According to sources Amorim “blew up”, went to his pre-match press conference, when he hinted at a changing strategy, before going nuclear at Elland Road, identifying Wilcox as one of the people he felt was overstepping the mark.
It is easy to see why Amorim might view suggestions he should change his formation, and be questioned about his perceived negative approach against Wolves, as someone going outside of their remit.
Yet it is also true that while the manager, or head coach, of a football team may be in a powerful position, there are people beyond the fanbase he is accountable to.
At Manchester United, Wilcox is one of them.
The events of the past few days will draw more attention to Wilcox, whose brief is enormous.
“The academy is under me,” Wilcox told Inside Carrington.
“On the women’s side, I support [head coach] Marc [Skinner] from a technical perspective. Recruitment, operations, travel, logistics, kit. Medicine.
“The breadth of the role is huge. I’m accountable for it but I have an amazing team.”
More scrutiny on Wilcox means more scrutiny placed on the merits of Manchester United hiring so many staff who have worked at Manchester City.
Wilcox spent 10 years at City, rising to become academy director, before taking over as technical director at Southampton in January 2023.
He oversaw the appointment of Stephen Torpey as academy director in September.
Torpey arrived from Brentford after spending nine years at City.
Alan Wright, set to be on the first-team bench against Burnley on Wednesday to help out interim boss Darren Fletcher, joined United in the autumn as a senior academy coach for the Under-18 to Under-21 age groups. He spent 10 years working with City’s Under-16s.
Berrada was chief football operations officer at City before his move to United.
“It’s unbelievable,” legendary Class of ’92 member and former United head of academy Nicky Butt told the Times in an interview in October.
“Every City staff member goes to Man Utd now. Real Madrid wouldn’t do it with Barcelona or vice versa.”
For now, Wilcox will try to navigate his way through the current storm and focus on the core elements of his job.
“Trust the process,” was his aside, as he strode, smiling, past a group of reporters following the 2-1 win at Crystal Palace in November.
The ‘process’ at the moment is about finding an interim manager to guide the club through the remainder of the season – and hoping it is more Ole Gunnar Solskjaer than Ralf Rangnick – and then a permanent successor for Amorim in the summer.
It is also about trying to identify transfer targets this month, although United’s insistence the current squad is significantly better than recent results does not suggest anything more than one addition at the most.
Wilcox’s work will be analysed like never before. Amorim claimed too many people at United were influenced by external opinion from the likes of Gary Neville. Wilcox knows his old friend and Leeds team-mate Rio Ferdinand is likely to be one of those assessing his work.
“There is a lot of noise from the outside,” Wilcox told Inside Carrington.
“I try not to read it. It is not helpful. If you start believing it when something is positive, you have to take it both ways.
“The pressure is a privilege, it won’t go away but we can’t have the pendulum swinging so much it affects the mood.”
