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Itranspired Ruben Amorim endured a loss to Grimsby. He weathered losing a crucial European final against one of the worst Tottenham teams in living memory. He withstood home defeats against West Ham and Wolves, finishing 15th, an unwavering system, squandering some of the club’s best homegrown talent, the 32% win rate, calling the squad the worst in Manchester United history. Yet, there existed a single opponent with whom Ruben Amorim would not be allowed to engage. If you challenge the sporting director, and you best not miss.

Unfortunately, like many a Premiership right-back during Blackburn Rovers' title-winning 1994-95 season, the coach came at the executive and appears to have missed. The most casual observer can see the paradoxical situation: a manager who often railed his squad for failing in individual battles crumbling in the face of the white heat and formidable presence of one of the Premier League’s most intimidating football executives.

And frankly, this entire bruising episode appears to portray Jason Wilcox in a different perspective. It may have been easy, given his nine months of experience at Southampton, to view Jason Wilcox as merely a functionary in the United exoskeleton: a man who owed his position as much to his friendship with ex-colleague Omar Berrada as any demonstrable skill. How mistaken everyone was. By masterfully outmanoeuvring United’s feted head coach, just as he bested the unfortunate Dan Ashworth earlier, Jason Wilcox has proved himself to be among football's strategic masterminds: a tactical intellect that the club's mid-table rivals will now be rightly wary.

A Tactical Clash Regarding Formation and Philosophy

To illustrate, it was Jason Wilcox , after having been part of the hierarchy that appointed the 3-4-3 fundamentalist Amorim in the first place, played a key role in attempting to convince Amorim to abandon his beloved 3-4-3. Unsurprisingly, these entreaties were resisted. However, these judgements hold greater authority when issued by a man of a man the unimpeachable soccer background he possesses, a veteran of three England caps and a contributor to a title-winning side from 31 years ago.

Perhaps in time Jason Wilcox may be persuaded to explain his reasoning publicly. Maybe one day questions may arise why Amorim is walking away with full compensation, with no penalty clause activated. The director speaks rarely in public, and with very good reason. The true intellectuals in football – men like 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 complex calculations. Desiring an explanation is not quite equivalent to being prepared to comprehend it.

An Supreme Power Behind Command

But of course, in training our focus on the sporting director we overlook the real power behind the club's current leadership. 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. According to reports, the owner has also proposed playing Bryan Mbeumo in a wing-back role. The owner is eager for the club to adopt analytics and analytics. Per reports, in an executive meeting early in his minority ownership, he announced that the team's approach to football “shall be decided in this room”.

After all, Ratcliffe is a specialist in this technical footballing stuff, drawing from his previous experience in industry and yachting. Most importantly he remains immensely wealthy, and as we all know, the rich are superior: more perceptive, more wise, strategically brilliant, simply better. Whom else could one trust to manage an enlightened programme of cost-cutting, the building of a modern arena that looks similar to someone’s leftover knitting, the signing of Benjamin Sesko?

A Modern Soccer Hierarchy: Directors Over Coaches

This is a trend that is becoming prevalent at the elite levels of the game. For decades, clubs foolishly entrusted big footballing decisions to subordinate staff like managers, talent spotters – even footballers. Maybe previously possible for a young, innovative manager with ideas and drive to go into a club and see their vision through to completion. Yet how many companies have such individuals established? What number of large-scale layoffs have they managed? Better by far to invest the real power where it belongs: the leadership tier, the casually dressed executives, the guys with impressive LinkedIn profiles. It is wiser to decide the tactics by the directors and appoint someone who can tailor their offering to suit. If coaches were formerly chefs, they are now more like delivery personnel: not responsible for the food, yet finally accountable should it be delivered cold or fails 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 visible figurehead for a club they have minimal power to change. A coach at Chelsea leads a team of literal children into Europe and wins domestic cups, and essentially is dismissed for talking. Wilfried Nancy sees his reputation ruined whereas the people who hired him continue to make errors indefinitely.

The Modern Corporate Football: Accountability for the Coaches

And possibly in a small way this represents neoliberalism in action: the rise of a gilded elite who are infallible, whose decisions are always sacrosanct, whose errors can always be sacked away without justification. Appoint the 3-4-3 coach only to dismiss him for playing too much 3-4-3. Hire the project manager and then bin them for taking too long. And most importantly be grateful; for your modest increases in ticket costs, for your new summer signings, for the fact that the grownups – however well qualified – are in charge.