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Iturns out the manager endured defeat by Grimsby. Survive a decisive European final against a particularly poor Spurs sides for many years. He could survive home defeats to West Ham and Wolves, a lowly league position, the tactical inflexibility, undermining the team's best homegrown talent, the 32% win rate, labeling his team the worst the club has ever seen. Yet, there existed a single opponent against whom Ruben Amorim would not be allowed to tango. If you challenge the sporting director, and you best not miss.

Unfortunately, like many a Premiership defender in Blackburn’s championship 1994-95 season, Amorim came at Jason Wilcox and appears to have missed. Even the most distracted of readers can see the paradoxical situation: a manager who frequently berated his squad for losing one-on-one duels succumbing in the face of the white heat and formidable presence of one of England's top division's most feared football executives.

And frankly, this entire painful saga seems to paint the director in a different perspective. Perhaps it might have been easy, based on his nine months of experience at Southampton, to view Jason Wilcox as merely a functionary in the United exoskeleton: a man whose appointment was due as much to his friendship with his former boss a fellow executive as any verifiable talent. How wrong we all were. In brilliantly outsmarting the club's celebrated manager, as he outmanoeuvred the unfortunate a previous executive earlier, Jason Wilcox has proved himself to be among the sport’s true generals: a tactical intellect that the club's mid-table rivals will now be justifiably concerned.

The Tactical Clash Regarding System and Philosophy

For example, this was the director who having been part of the leadership that appointed the rigid 3-4-3 advocate the coach in the first place, was instrumental in trying to persuade Amorim to abandon his favored 3-4-3. Naturally, these pleas faced pushback. However, such directives hold greater authority when issued by a man with the impeccable football pedigree he possesses, a veteran of international appearances and a role in a championship team decades past.

Perhaps in time Jason Wilcox might agree to outline his reasoning to the rest of us. Perhaps at some point questions may arise why Amorim is departing with a full payout, with no penalty clause in place. But Jason Wilcox seldom speaks publicly, and with very good reason. The true intellectuals of this sport – individuals such as Jason Wilcox – simply operate at a level exceeding our mundane comprehension. If he ever did speak, probably all we would hear would be high-frequency signals and complex calculations. Wanting is not quite equivalent to being ready to comprehend it.

An Ultimate Authority Behind Command

Naturally, by focusing our attention on the sporting director we are obscuring the real power behind the club's current leadership. Jason Wilcox is, in reality, simply carrying out the commands of his line manager Sir Jim Ratcliffe, who in private has emphasized his desire for a four-man defense. According to reports, Ratcliffe has also suggested deploying the forward in a wing-back role. Ratcliffe is keen for United to adopt data science and metrics. According to ESPN, in an executive meeting soon after his investment, he announced that the team's approach of play “shall be decided in this room”.

After all, Ratcliffe is a specialist in these intricate football matters, drawing from his previous experience in industry and sailing. Above all he is incredibly rich, and it is known, the rich are the best of us: more insightful, more wise, strategically brilliant, simply better. Whom else would you trust to manage a strategic plan of austerity, the building of a new stadium that appears a lot like someone’s leftover knitting, the acquisition of a new striker?

A New Football Order: Directors Above Managers

This is a trend we are increasingly seeing at the elite levels football. For decades, clubs foolishly delegated big footballing decisions to low-level employees like managers, scouts – even footballers. Maybe previously possible for a young, visionary coach with ideas and drive to go into an organization and implement their plan through to completion. But how many companies have such individuals set up? How many large-scale layoffs have they managed? Better by far to invest genuine authority where it rightly belongs: the leadership tier, the open-necked shirt brigade, the individuals with the jaw-dropping LinkedIn profiles. Better by far to determine the strategy in the boardroom and appoint a coach who will adapt their offering accordingly. If coaches were formerly chefs, they have become more like Deliveroo drivers: not really responsible for the product, yet finally accountable if it arrives cold or leaks out to meet standards.

Nowadays, a coach's role is increasingly not about defining the vision and more about marketing it: the front-facing representative on the front desk, the public face of an organisation they have minimal power to change. Enzo Maresca leads a team of very young players into the Champions League and secures two medium-sized trophies, and essentially is dismissed for talking. A manager at Celtic sees his reputation ruined while those individuals who hired him live to blunder indefinitely.

A Neoliberal Football: Responsibility Only for the Coaches

And perhaps in a small way this represents corporate governance at work: the rise of a gilded overclass who can never be wrong, whose decisions remain sacrosanct, whose mistakes can always be resolved by sacking without explanation. Appoint the system coach and then fire him for playing too much 3-4-3. Hire the project manager and later discard them for requiring too long. And above all be grateful; for the incremental increases in ticket costs, for the latest summer signings, for the fact that the grownups – however well qualified – are in charge.