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Turns out Ruben Amorim could survive a loss to lower-league opposition. Survive losing a crucial European final against one of the worst Spurs sides for many years. He withstood home defeats against West Ham and Wolves, a lowly league position, his rigid approach, laying waste to some of the club’s most promising academy products, the 32% win rate, calling the squad the poorest in Manchester United history. But there was a single opponent with whom the Portuguese coach was not permitted to engage. If you challenge the sporting director, you had better succeed.

Unfortunately, like many a top-flight defender in Blackburn’s title-winning campaign, Amorim took on Jason Wilcox and seems to have failed. The most distracted of readers will notice the irony here: a manager who often railed his squad for failing in one-on-one duels crumbling when confronted by the intense pressure and formidable presence of a England's top division's most intimidating sporting directors.

And frankly, this whole painful saga seems to paint Jason Wilcox in a whole new light. Perhaps it might have been tempting, based on his nine months in a similar role with the Saints, to regard Jason Wilcox as merely a functionary in the United exoskeleton: an individual who owed his position as much to his friendship with his former boss a fellow executive rather than any demonstrable skill. How wrong everyone was. By masterfully outmanoeuvring United’s feted head coach, as he outmanoeuvred the hapless a previous executive before him, he has demonstrated as one of the sport’s strategic masterminds: a strategic mind that United’s mid-table rivals are now justifiably concerned.

The Tactical Conflict Over Formation & Philosophy

To illustrate, this was Jason Wilcox , after having been part of the leadership that appointed the rigid 3-4-3 advocate the coach originally, played a key role in attempting to convince Amorim to ditch his beloved formation. Naturally, these entreaties met a certain resistance. However, such directives carry more weight when delivered by a man with the unimpeachable soccer background he possesses, holder of three England caps and a contributor to a title-winning side decades past.

Perhaps in time he may be persuaded to explain his reasoning to the rest of us. Maybe one day questions may arise why Amorim is walking away with full compensation, without any compensation reduction clause in place. But Jason Wilcox seldom speaks in public, for excellent reasons. The real thinkers of this sport – individuals such as him – function at a level beyond our own prosaic understanding. Were he to speak, most likely all we would hear would be high-frequency signals and four-dimensional whirring. Desiring an explanation is not the same as being prepared to receive.

An Ultimate Authority Behind Command

Naturally, in training our focus on Jason Wilcox we overlook the true genius behind the club's current leadership. The director is, in reality, merely executing the directives of his ultimate superior Sir Jim Ratcliffe, who privately has emphasized his desire for a back four. It is reported, 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 minority ownership, he announced that the team's approach to football “shall be determined in this room”.

After all, Ratcliffe is a specialist in this technical footballing stuff, leveraging his background in petrochemicals and yachting. Above all he remains incredibly rich, and it is known, the wealthy are the best of us: more insightful, sagacious, more tactically astute, simply superior. Whom else would you trust to manage an enlightened programme of cost-cutting, the building of a modern arena that appears similar to someone’s leftover knitting, the acquisition of Benjamin Sesko?

The New Football Hierarchy: Executives Above Managers

This represents a shift that is becoming prevalent in top-tier of the game. For decades, clubs foolishly delegated major sporting choices to low-level employees like managers, scouts – players themselves. Perhaps it was once possible for a young, innovative manager with a philosophy and energy to join an organization and see their vision through to completion. But how many businesses have these guys set up? How many large-scale layoffs have they overseen? Far preferable to invest the real power where it rightly belongs: the leadership tier, the casually dressed executives, the guys with impressive professional resumes. It is wiser to determine the tactics in the boardroom and appoint a coach who can tailor their offering accordingly. If managers were formerly chefs, they have become more akin to Deliveroo drivers: not really responsible for the food, yet ultimately answerable if it arrives cold or leaks out to meet standards.

Nowadays, a coach's role is increasingly less about crafting the philosophy and more about marketing it: the front-facing representative of the operation, the public face of an organisation they can do little to change. A coach at Chelsea leads a team of literal children into Europe and secures two medium-sized trophies, and essentially is dismissed for talking. A manager at Celtic finds his standing damaged while the people who hired him continue to make errors indefinitely.

A Neoliberal Football: Accountability for the Coaches

And possibly in a small way this represents corporate governance at work: the rise of a privileged elite who are infallible, whose choices are always untouchable, whose errors can invariably be resolved by sacking without justification. Hire the system coach and then dismiss him for playing excessively 3-4-3. Hire the project manager and then bin him for taking too long. And above all be grateful; for your modest increases in ticket costs, for the latest summer signings, for the reality that the grownups – regardless of their expertise – are in charge.