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Turns out Ruben Amorim was able to withstand losing against Grimsby. He weathered a decisive European final versus a particularly poor Tottenham teams for many years. He could survive losing at home to West Ham and Wolves, finishing 15th, an unwavering system, undermining the team's most promising homegrown talent, the 32% win rate, labeling his team the poorest the club has ever seen. Yet, there existed a single opponent with whom the Portuguese coach was not permitted to tango. You come at Jason Wilcox, you had better succeed.

Unfortunately, like many a top-flight defender in Blackburn’s title-winning 1994-95 season, the coach came at Jason Wilcox and seems to have failed. The most casual observer will notice the irony here: a coach who often railed his squad for losing one-on-one duels crumbling when confronted by the white heat and animal charisma of one of the Premier League’s most feared football executives.

And frankly, this whole painful saga appears to portray the director in a whole new light. Perhaps it might have been tempting, given his nine months in a similar role at Southampton, to regard him as merely a functionary within the club's structure: an individual who owed his position as much to his friendship with ex-colleague Omar Berrada rather than any demonstrable skill. How wrong everyone was. By masterfully outmanoeuvring the club's celebrated manager, as he outmanoeuvred the hapless a previous executive before him, he has demonstrated as one of football's true generals: a strategic mind of which United’s mid-table rivals will now be justifiably concerned.

A Strategic Conflict Over System and Philosophy

For example, it was Jason Wilcox , after having been part of the hierarchy that appointed the 3-4-3 fundamentalist Amorim originally, played a key role in attempting to convince Amorim to abandon his favored 3-4-3. Naturally, these pleas faced pushback. However, these judgements carry more weight when issued from the mouth of a man the unimpeachable soccer background he possesses, a veteran of three England caps and a role in a championship team decades past.

Maybe eventually Jason Wilcox may be persuaded to explain his reasoning to the rest of us. Perhaps at some point questions may arise why Amorim is walking away with full compensation, without any penalty clause activated. The director seldom speaks publicly, for excellent reasons. The real thinkers in football – men like him – function at a level exceeding our mundane comprehension. If he ever did speak, probably we would perceive would be high-frequency signals and complex calculations. Desiring an explanation is not quite equivalent to being ready to receive.

The Supreme Power Behind the Throne

Naturally, in training our focus on the sporting director we are obscuring the real power behind the modern United throne. Jason Wilcox is, in reality, merely executing the commands of his line manager Sir Jim Ratcliffe, who in private has made very clear his preference for a back four. It is reported, Ratcliffe has also suggested deploying the forward as a right wing-back. Ratcliffe is keen for the club to embrace analytics and analytics. Per reports, during a leadership summit soon after his investment, he announced that the team's approach to football “shall be determined in this room”.

Ultimately, Sir Jim is an expert in these intricate footballing stuff, drawing from his background in petrochemicals and sailing. Most importantly he remains incredibly rich, and it is known, the wealthy are superior: more insightful, more wise, more tactically astute, fundamentally superior. Whom else could one trust to manage an enlightened programme of austerity, the building of a modern arena that appears similar to someone’s leftover knitting, the signing of Benjamin Sesko?

The Modern Soccer Order: Executives Over Managers

This is a trend that is becoming prevalent at the elite levels football. Historically, teams mistakenly delegated major sporting choices to subordinate staff like managers, scouts – players themselves. Maybe previously feasible for an up-and-coming, visionary coach with ideas and energy to go into an organization and see their vision supported to fruition. Yet how many companies have these guys established? What number of mass redundancies have they overseen? Better by far to place the real power where it belongs: the leadership tier, the open-necked shirt brigade, the individuals with impressive LinkedIn profiles. It is wiser to decide the tactics by the directors and appoint a coach who will adapt their offering to suit. If coaches were once chefs, they have become more like Deliveroo drivers: not responsible for the product, but still ultimately answerable if it arrives cold or leaks out of the box.

Nowadays, a coach's role has become not about crafting the philosophy and more about marketing it: the receptionist of the operation, the visible figurehead of an organisation they can do little to change. A coach at Chelsea leads a team of literal children into Europe and wins two medium-sized trophies, and effectively gets sacked for talking. A manager at Celtic sees his reputation ruined while the people who hired him continue to make errors indefinitely.

A Neoliberal Game: Responsibility for the Few

And perhaps in a small way this is simply corporate governance in action: the elevation of a privileged overclass who can never be wrong, whose choices remain sacrosanct, whose mistakes can invariably be resolved by sacking without explanation. Hire the 3-4-3 coach and then fire them for using excessively that system. Hire the project manager and then bin him for requiring excessive time. And most importantly be grateful; for your modest increases in ticket costs, for your new summer signings, for the reality that the adults – regardless of their expertise – are in charge.