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Tbecame clear the manager was able to withstand defeat by Grimsby. He weathered losing a crucial continental showpiece versus a particularly poor Tottenham teams for many years. He could survive losing at home against West Ham and Wolves, finishing 15th, the tactical inflexibility, undermining the team's most promising homegrown talent, the 32% win rate, calling the squad the poorest in Manchester United history. But there was one adversary with whom Ruben Amorim would not be allowed to dance. If you challenge the sporting director, and you best not miss.

Unfortunately, similar to numerous top-flight right-back during Blackburn Rovers' title-winning campaign, the coach took on the executive and appears to have missed. Even the most casual observer will notice the paradoxical situation: a coach who frequently berated at his players for failing in one-on-one duels succumbing when confronted by the white heat and formidable presence of a the Premier League’s most feared football executives.

In truth, this entire bruising episode seems to paint the director in a whole new light. Perhaps it might have been easy, based on his brief stint in a similar role with the Saints, to view him as little more than a functionary in the United exoskeleton: an individual whose appointment was due as much to his friendship with his former boss a fellow executive as any verifiable talent. How mistaken we all were. In brilliantly outsmarting United’s feted head coach, as he outmanoeuvred the unfortunate Dan Ashworth before him, Jason Wilcox has proved himself as one of football's true generals: a tactical intellect of which the club's competitors will now be rightly wary.

A Tactical Conflict Regarding System and Philosophy

To illustrate, this was Jason Wilcox who having been part of the hierarchy that hired the 3-4-3 fundamentalist Amorim in the first place, played a key role in trying to persuade Amorim to ditch his favored 3-4-3. Naturally, these pleas met a certain resistance. But perhaps such directives hold greater authority when delivered from the mouth with the unimpeachable football pedigree of Jason Wilcox, holder of international appearances and a contributor to a title-winning side decades past.

Maybe eventually Jason Wilcox may be persuaded to explain his thought processes publicly. Perhaps at some point he might be asked regarding why the coach is departing with full compensation, with no penalty clause in place. But Jason Wilcox speaks rarely publicly, for excellent reasons. The true intellectuals in football – men like him – function on a plane beyond our own mundane comprehension. Were he to speak, probably we would perceive is a series of high-frequency signals and four-dimensional whirring. Desiring an explanation is not quite the same as being prepared to receive.

An Ultimate Authority In Command

Naturally, in training our focus on the sporting director we are obscuring the true genius behind the modern United throne. Jason Wilcox is, after all, simply carrying out the directives of his ultimate line manager Sir Jim Ratcliffe, who privately has made very clear his desire for a four-man defense. It is reported, the owner has also proposed deploying the forward in a wing-back role. The owner is eager for the club to embrace analytics and metrics. According to ESPN, in an executive meeting early in his minority ownership, he declared that the team's approach of play “shall be determined in this room”.

After all, Sir Jim is a specialist in this technical footballing stuff, leveraging his background in industry and sailing. Most importantly he remains incredibly rich, and it is known, the wealthy are superior: more perceptive, sagacious, strategically brilliant, fundamentally better. Whom else would you trust to oversee an enlightened programme of austerity, the building of a modern arena that appears a lot like an abstract design, the acquisition of a new striker?

A New Soccer Order: Directors Over Coaches

This represents a shift we are increasingly seeing at the elite levels football. For decades, teams mistakenly delegated big footballing decisions to low-level employees such as coaches, talent spotters – players themselves. Perhaps it was once feasible for an up-and-coming, innovative manager with a philosophy and energy to join a club and see their vision supported to fruition. Yet how many companies have these guys established? How many mass redundancies have they managed? Far preferable to place the real power where it belongs: the executive class, the casually dressed executives, the individuals with the jaw-dropping LinkedIn profiles. Better by far to determine the strategy in the boardroom and hire a coach who can tailor their offering to suit. If managers were formerly chefs, they have become more akin to Deliveroo drivers: not really creating the product, yet finally accountable should it be delivered poorly or leaks out to meet standards.

In the meantime, a coach's role has become not about crafting the philosophy and more about marketing it: the receptionist on the front desk, the public face of an organisation they can do little to influence. A coach at Chelsea takes a squad of literal children into the Champions League and wins two medium-sized trophies, and effectively is dismissed for talking. Wilfried Nancy finds his reputation ruined while those individuals who hired him live to blunder indefinitely.

A Neoliberal Game: Accountability for the Few

And perhaps on some microcosmic level this is simply neoliberalism in action: the elevation of a gilded overclass who are infallible, whose decisions are always sacrosanct, whose errors can always be resolved by sacking without explanation. Hire the 3-4-3 coach and then dismiss him for playing excessively 3-4-3. Hire the process guy and later discard them for taking excessive time. And most importantly show gratitude; for the incremental increases in ticket costs, for the latest summer signings, for the fact that the adults – regardless of their expertise – remain in control.