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Turns out Ruben Amorim endured defeat by Grimsby. He weathered a decisive European final against one of the worst Tottenham teams for many years. He could survive losing at home against domestic rivals, a lowly league position, his rigid approach, squandering the team's most promising homegrown talent, the 32% win rate, calling his team the worst in Manchester United history. But there was one adversary against whom the Portuguese coach was not permitted to dance. If you challenge the sporting director, and you best not miss.

Unfortunately, like many a top-flight right-back during Blackburn Rovers' championship 1994-95 season, the coach took on Jason Wilcox and seems to have missed. Even the most distracted of readers can see the paradoxical situation: a coach who often railed his squad for failing in one-on-one duels succumbing when confronted by the white heat and formidable presence of a the Premier League’s most intimidating sporting directors.

In truth, this entire painful saga seems to paint Jason Wilcox in a different perspective. Perhaps it might have been easy, given his nine months in a similar role with the Saints, to view Jason Wilcox as merely a drudge in the United exoskeleton: an individual whose appointment was due largely to his friendship with his former boss a fellow executive rather than any verifiable talent. How wrong we all were. In brilliantly outsmarting the club's celebrated manager, just as he bested 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 System & Ideology

For example, this was the director who being involved in the leadership that appointed the rigid 3-4-3 advocate Amorim in the first place, played a key role in trying to persuade Amorim to ditch his beloved formation. Unsurprisingly, these entreaties faced pushback. However, these judgements carry more weight when issued from the mouth with the unimpeachable football pedigree he possesses, holder of three England caps and a role in a title-winning side from 31 years ago.

Perhaps in time he may be persuaded to outline his reasoning publicly. Perhaps at some point questions may arise regarding why the coach is departing with full compensation, with no penalty clause in place. The director seldom speaks in public, for excellent reasons. The real thinkers in football – men like him – function at a level exceeding our prosaic understanding. If he ever did speak, probably we would perceive would be high-frequency signals and four-dimensional whirring. Wanting is not the same as being prepared to comprehend it.

An Supreme Power Behind Command

But of course, in training our focus 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 desire for a back four. According to reports, Ratcliffe has also proposed deploying the forward in a wing-back role. Ratcliffe is keen for the club to embrace data science and analytics. According to ESPN, in an executive meeting soon after his minority ownership, he announced that the team's approach of play “shall be decided in this room”.

After all, Sir Jim is an expert in this technical football matters, drawing from his background in industry and yachting. Above all he remains immensely wealthy, and as we all know, the rich are the best of us: more insightful, more wise, strategically brilliant, fundamentally better. Whom else would you trust to manage an enlightened programme of austerity, the construction of a new stadium that appears similar to someone’s leftover knitting, the signing of Benjamin Sesko?

A Modern Soccer Order: Executives Above Coaches

This is a trend we are increasingly seeing in top-tier of the game. For decades, teams mistakenly delegated major sporting choices to low-level employees like managers, scouts – players themselves. Maybe previously feasible for a young, innovative manager with a philosophy and energy to go into a club and implement their plan supported to fruition. But how many businesses have such individuals set up? How many large-scale layoffs have they managed? Far preferable to place the real power where it belongs: the executive class, the casually dressed executives, the guys with impressive professional resumes. It is wiser to decide the strategy by the directors and appoint a coach who will adapt their offering to suit. If coaches were once chefs, they have become more akin to Deliveroo drivers: not creating the product, yet ultimately answerable if it arrives cold or leaks out to meet standards.

Nowadays, a coach's role is increasingly less about defining the vision and more about selling it: the receptionist on the front desk, the public face for a club they can do little to influence. A coach at Chelsea leads a team of very young players into the Champions League and wins two medium-sized trophies, and effectively gets sacked for talking. Wilfried Nancy sees his standing damaged while the people who hired him live to blunder another day.

The Modern Corporate Football: Accountability Only for the Coaches

And possibly in a small way this is simply neoliberalism in action: the rise of a privileged overclass who are infallible, whose decisions remain sacrosanct, whose errors can always be resolved by sacking without explanation. Appoint the system coach and then dismiss them for using too much that system. Hire the process guy and then bin him for requiring excessive time. And most importantly be grateful; for the incremental season ticket price rises, for your new player acquisitions, for the fact that the adults – however well qualified – remain in control.