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Tbecame clear Ruben Amorim endured losing against lower-league opposition. He weathered losing a crucial continental showpiece against one of the worst Tottenham teams in living memory. He could survive home defeats against West Ham and Wolves, finishing 15th, his rigid approach, undermining some of the club’s most promising academy products, the 32% win rate, calling his team the poorest the club has ever seen. Yet, there existed one adversary against whom Ruben Amorim would not be allowed to dance. You come at the sporting director, you had better succeed.

Regrettably, like many a top-flight right-back during Blackburn Rovers' title-winning 1994-95 season, Amorim took on the executive and seems to have missed. The most distracted of readers will notice the irony here: a coach who often railed at his players for losing individual battles crumbling when confronted by the intense pressure and animal charisma of one of England's top division's most feared football executives.

And frankly, this entire bruising episode appears to portray Jason Wilcox in a different perspective. It may have been tempting, given his brief stint of experience at Southampton, to regard him as merely a functionary in the United exoskeleton: a man who owed his position as much to his friendship with his former boss Omar Berrada as any verifiable talent. How wrong everyone was. In brilliantly outsmarting United’s feted manager, just as he bested the unfortunate Dan Ashworth earlier, he has proved himself to be among football's strategic masterminds: a tactical intellect of which United’s mid-table rivals will now be rightly wary.

A Strategic Clash Regarding Formation and Ideology

To illustrate, this was the director who being involved in the leadership that appointed the rigid 3-4-3 advocate the coach originally, played a key role in trying to persuade him to abandon his beloved formation. Naturally, these pleas met a certain resistance. But perhaps such directives hold greater authority when delivered by a man of a man the impeccable football pedigree of Jason Wilcox, a veteran of three England caps and a role in a championship team decades past.

Perhaps in time he may be persuaded to explain his thought processes to the rest of us. Maybe one day questions may arise regarding why the coach is departing with full compensation, without any penalty clause in place. But Jason Wilcox seldom speaks in public, for excellent reasons. The true intellectuals of this sport – men like him – simply operate at a level beyond our own mundane comprehension. Were he to speak, probably we would perceive would be high-frequency signals and four-dimensional whirring. Wanting is not quite the same as being ready to comprehend it.

The Ultimate Authority Behind Command

Naturally, in training our focus on the sporting director we overlook the real power behind the modern United throne. The director is, in reality, simply carrying out the directives of his ultimate superior Sir Jim Ratcliffe, who privately has emphasized his preference for a four-man defense. It is reported, Ratcliffe has also proposed playing Bryan Mbeumo in a wing-back role. Ratcliffe is keen for United to adopt data science and analytics. Per reports, during a leadership summit early in his investment, he announced that United’s style to football “will be determined in this room”.

After all, Ratcliffe is a specialist in these intricate footballing stuff, leveraging his previous experience in petrochemicals and yachting. Above all he remains incredibly rich, and as we all know, the rich are superior: more perceptive, more wise, more tactically astute, simply superior. Whom else could one trust to oversee an enlightened programme of cost-cutting, the construction of a modern arena that looks a lot like an abstract design, the signing of a new striker?

A New Soccer Hierarchy: Executives Above Managers

This represents a shift that is becoming prevalent at the elite levels football. Historically, clubs foolishly delegated big footballing decisions to subordinate staff like managers, scouts – even footballers. Maybe previously possible for a young, innovative manager with a philosophy and drive to go into a club and see their vision through to completion. But how many businesses have such individuals established? What number of mass redundancies have they managed? Better by far to place genuine authority where it belongs: the leadership tier, the casually dressed executives, the individuals with impressive professional resumes. Better by far to decide the strategy by the directors and hire a coach who can tailor their offering to suit. If coaches were formerly chefs, they are now more like delivery personnel: not creating the food, but still ultimately answerable if it arrives cold or fails of the box.

In the meantime, a coach's role has become less about defining the vision and more about marketing it: the receptionist on the front desk, the visible figurehead for a club they can do little to influence. A coach at Chelsea takes a squad of very young players into the Champions League and secures two medium-sized trophies, and essentially gets sacked for speaking out. A manager at Celtic sees his reputation ruined whereas those individuals who hired him live to blunder another day.

The Neoliberal Football: Responsibility for the Few

And perhaps on some microcosmic level this is simply corporate governance at work: the elevation of a gilded overclass who are infallible, whose decisions are always untouchable, whose mistakes can always be sacked away without justification. Hire the system coach and then fire them for playing excessively that system. Hire the project manager and later bin him for taking too long. And most importantly show gratitude; for the incremental increases in ticket costs, for the latest summer signings, for the fact that the grownups – however well qualified – are in charge.