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Itranspired Ruben Amorim was able to withstand losing against lower-league opposition. Survive losing a crucial continental showpiece versus one of the worst Spurs sides in living memory. He withstood home defeats to West Ham and Wolves, finishing 15th, an unwavering system, undermining some of the club’s best homegrown talent, a poor winning percentage, calling his team the worst the club has ever seen. But there was a single opponent with whom Ruben Amorim was not permitted to engage. If you challenge the sporting director, you had better succeed.

Regrettably, like many a Premiership right-back during Blackburn Rovers' championship 1994-95 season, the coach came at Jason Wilcox and appears to have failed. Even the most distracted of readers can see the paradoxical situation: a manager who often railed his squad for failing in individual battles succumbing when confronted by the intense pressure and animal charisma of one of England's top division'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 of experience with the Saints, to regard Jason Wilcox as little more than a functionary in the United exoskeleton: a man whose appointment was due largely to his friendship with his former boss Omar Berrada rather than any verifiable talent. How wrong we all were. In brilliantly outsmarting the club's celebrated manager, as he outmanoeuvred the hapless a previous executive earlier, Jason Wilcox has demonstrated to be among the sport’s strategic masterminds: a strategic mind that the club's competitors will now be justifiably concerned.

The Strategic Conflict Over Formation and Ideology

To illustrate, this was Jason Wilcox who having been part of the hierarchy that hired the 3-4-3 fundamentalist the coach in the first place, was instrumental in attempting to convince Amorim to ditch his favored 3-4-3. Unsurprisingly, these pleas met a certain resistance. However, these judgements carry more weight when delivered from the mouth of a man the unimpeachable football pedigree of Jason Wilcox, a veteran of international appearances and a contributor to a title-winning side decades past.

Maybe eventually he might agree to explain his reasoning to the rest of us. Perhaps at some point questions may arise regarding why the coach is departing with a full payout, without any penalty clause activated. But Jason Wilcox seldom speaks in public, for excellent reasons. The real thinkers of this sport – individuals such as him – function on a plane exceeding our mundane comprehension. If he ever did speak, probably all we would hear is a series of high-frequency signals and four-dimensional whirring. Wanting is not quite equivalent to being ready to comprehend it.

The Ultimate Authority In the Throne

But of course, by focusing our attention on Jason Wilcox we are obscuring the true genius behind the club's current leadership. Jason Wilcox is, in reality, simply carrying out the directives of his line manager Sir Jim Ratcliffe, who privately has emphasized his preference for a four-man defense. It is reported, the owner has also proposed deploying the forward in a wing-back role. Ratcliffe is keen for United to embrace data science and metrics. Per reports, in an executive meeting soon after his minority ownership, he announced that the team's approach of play “will be determined in this room”.

After all, Sir Jim is a specialist in these intricate footballing stuff, leveraging his background in petrochemicals and yachting. Above all he remains immensely wealthy, and as we all know, the rich are superior: more insightful, sagacious, strategically brilliant, fundamentally superior. Who else could one trust to oversee a strategic plan of cost-cutting, the building of a modern arena that looks a lot like an abstract design, the signing of a new striker?

A New Football Order: Directors Over Managers

This represents a shift we are increasingly seeing at the elite levels of the game. Historically, teams mistakenly entrusted big footballing decisions to subordinate staff like managers, scouts – players themselves. Maybe previously feasible for an up-and-coming, innovative manager with ideas and energy to go into an organization and implement their plan through to completion. Yet how many businesses have these guys established? What number of large-scale layoffs have they managed? Better by far to invest genuine authority where it belongs: the leadership tier, the casually dressed executives, the individuals with the jaw-dropping LinkedIn profiles. Better by far to determine the strategy by the directors and hire someone who will adapt their offering to suit. If managers were once chefs, they are now more akin to Deliveroo drivers: not really responsible for the product, but still ultimately answerable if it arrives poorly or fails of the box.

In the meantime, a coach's role is increasingly less about defining the vision and more about marketing it: the front-facing representative on the front desk, the visible figurehead for a club they can do little to influence. Enzo Maresca takes a squad of very young players into the Champions League and secures domestic cups, and essentially gets sacked for talking. A manager at Celtic sees his reputation ruined while the people who hired him live to blunder another day.

A Neoliberal Game: Responsibility for the Few

And perhaps on some microcosmic level this represents neoliberalism at work: the elevation of a gilded overclass who are infallible, whose choices are always untouchable, whose mistakes can always be resolved by sacking without justification. Hire the system coach and then fire him for using too much that system. Hire the process guy and later bin him for requiring too long. And above all show gratitude; for your modest season ticket price rises, for the latest summer signings, for the fact that the grownups – however well qualified – remain in control.