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Itbecame clear the manager was able to withstand a loss to Grimsby. He weathered an important European final versus a particularly poor Spurs sides for many years. He could survive home defeats to West Ham and Wolves, finishing 15th, the tactical inflexibility, squandering the team's most promising academy products, the 32% win rate, labeling his team the worst in Manchester United history. Yet, there existed one adversary against whom Ruben Amorim was not permitted to engage. You come at the sporting director, and you best not miss.

Unfortunately, similar to numerous top-flight right-back in Blackburn’s championship campaign, the coach came at the executive and appears to have failed. Even the most distracted of readers will notice the irony here: a manager who frequently berated his squad for failing in one-on-one duels succumbing in the face of the white heat and formidable presence of one of the Premier League’s most feared football executives.

In truth, this entire bruising episode seems to paint Jason Wilcox in a different perspective. Perhaps it might have been tempting, given his nine months in a similar role with the Saints, to regard Jason Wilcox as merely a drudge within the club's structure: an individual who owed his position largely to his friendship with ex-colleague a fellow executive rather than any demonstrable skill. How mistaken we all were. In brilliantly outmanoeuvring the club's celebrated manager, as he outmanoeuvred the hapless a previous executive before him, Jason Wilcox has proved himself to be among the sport’s true generals: a strategic mind of which the club's mid-table rivals will now be rightly wary.

A Strategic Clash Regarding System & Ideology

To illustrate, this was Jason Wilcox who being involved in the leadership that hired the 3-4-3 fundamentalist Amorim in the first place, played a key role in attempting to convince Amorim to ditch his favored formation. Naturally, these pleas met a certain resistance. However, such directives carry more weight when issued from the mouth of a man the unimpeachable football pedigree of Jason Wilcox, holder of three England caps and a role in a championship team from 31 years ago.

Maybe eventually he may be persuaded to outline his thought processes publicly. Maybe one day questions may arise regarding why the coach is walking away with full compensation, without any compensation reduction clause activated. But Jason Wilcox speaks rarely publicly, for excellent reasons. The real thinkers of this sport – individuals such as him – function on a plane exceeding our prosaic understanding. Were he to speak, probably we would perceive would be high-frequency signals and complex calculations. Desiring an explanation is not quite the same as being ready to comprehend it.

An Ultimate Power Behind the Throne

Naturally, by focusing our attention on the sporting director we overlook the true genius behind the club's current leadership. The director is, in reality, merely executing the directives of his superior the billionaire owner, who privately has emphasized his preference for a back four. According to reports, the owner has also proposed playing Bryan Mbeumo in a wing-back role. Ratcliffe is keen for United to embrace analytics and metrics. According to ESPN, in an executive meeting soon after his investment, he announced that United’s style to football “shall be decided by this group”.

Ultimately, Ratcliffe is a specialist in this technical football matters, leveraging his previous experience in petrochemicals and sailing. Most importantly he is immensely wealthy, and as we all know, the rich are superior: more insightful, more wise, more tactically astute, simply better. Who else would you trust to manage an enlightened programme of cost-cutting, the building of a new stadium that looks a lot like an abstract design, the signing of a new striker?

A Modern Football Order: Directors Above Managers

This is a trend that is becoming prevalent at the elite levels of the game. Historically, teams mistakenly entrusted big footballing decisions to low-level employees like managers, talent spotters – players themselves. Perhaps it was once possible for a young, innovative manager with a philosophy and energy to go into a club and see their vision through to completion. But how many companies have these guys established? How many mass redundancies have they overseen? Far preferable to place genuine authority where it rightly belongs: the executive class, the casually dressed executives, the guys with the jaw-dropping LinkedIn profiles. Better by far to decide the tactics in the boardroom and appoint a coach who can tailor their offering to suit. If managers were formerly chefs, they are now more akin to delivery personnel: not really responsible for the food, yet ultimately answerable if it arrives cold or leaks out of the box.

In the meantime, their job is increasingly not about defining the vision and more about marketing it: the receptionist of the operation, the public face for a club they can do little to change. 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 speaking out. Wilfried Nancy sees his reputation ruined whereas the people who hired him continue to make errors another day.

The Neoliberal Game: Accountability for the Coaches

And possibly in a small way this represents corporate governance in action: the rise of a privileged elite who can never be wrong, whose choices are always sacrosanct, whose mistakes can invariably be resolved by sacking without justification. Hire the system coach and then dismiss them for playing too much 3-4-3. Hire the project manager and then bin him for requiring excessive time. And above all show gratitude; for the incremental season ticket price rises, for your new player acquisitions, for the fact that the adults – however well qualified – are in charge.