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Turns out Ruben Amorim endured losing against Grimsby. Survive an important continental showpiece versus one of the worst Tottenham teams for many years. He withstood losing at home to West Ham and Wolves, a lowly league position, his rigid approach, undermining the team's most promising academy products, a poor winning percentage, calling the squad the poorest in Manchester United history. But there was one adversary against whom Ruben Amorim would not be allowed to dance. You come at the sporting director, and you best not miss.

Regrettably, similar to numerous Premiership defender in Blackburn’s championship campaign, Amorim came at the executive and appears to have failed. The most casual observer will notice the paradoxical situation: a coach who frequently berated at his players for losing individual battles crumbling in the face of the white heat and animal charisma of a the Premier League’s most intimidating football executives.

And frankly, this whole painful saga seems to paint Jason Wilcox in a different perspective. It may have been easy, based on his nine months of experience with the Saints, to regard Jason Wilcox as merely a drudge in the United exoskeleton: an individual whose appointment was due largely to his friendship with his former boss Omar Berrada as any verifiable talent. How mistaken everyone was. By masterfully outmanoeuvring United’s feted manager, as he outmanoeuvred the unfortunate Dan Ashworth earlier, Jason Wilcox has demonstrated as one of the sport’s strategic masterminds: a strategic mind of which United’s competitors will now be justifiably concerned.

The Tactical Conflict Over System & Philosophy

For example, this was the director who being involved in the leadership that appointed the 3-4-3 fundamentalist Amorim originally, played a key role in attempting to convince Amorim to abandon his beloved 3-4-3. Unsurprisingly, these pleas met a certain resistance. However, such directives carry more weight when delivered from the mouth with the impeccable soccer background of Jason Wilcox, a veteran of international appearances and a contributor to a title-winning side decades past.

Maybe eventually he may be persuaded to outline his reasoning publicly. Perhaps at some point he might be asked regarding why the coach is walking away with a full payout, without any penalty clause activated. The director speaks rarely in public, for excellent reasons. The true intellectuals in football – men like him – simply operate at a level beyond our own prosaic understanding. If he ever did speak, most likely we would perceive would be ultrasonic blips and complex calculations. Wanting is not equivalent to being prepared to receive.

An Supreme Authority In Command

But of course, in training our focus on the sporting director we overlook the true genius behind the club's current leadership. Jason Wilcox is, after all, merely executing the commands of his superior Sir Jim Ratcliffe, who in private has made very clear his preference for a back four. According to reports, the owner has also suggested deploying the forward in a wing-back role. Ratcliffe is keen for United to adopt analytics and analytics. According to ESPN, during a leadership summit soon after his minority ownership, he announced that United’s style to football “shall be determined by this group”.

After all, Sir Jim is a specialist in this technical football matters, leveraging his background in petrochemicals and yachting. Above all he remains incredibly rich, and as we all know, the rich are the best of us: more perceptive, sagacious, more tactically astute, simply superior. Whom else would you trust to oversee a strategic plan of austerity, the construction of a modern arena that appears a lot like an abstract design, the acquisition of Benjamin Sesko?

A Modern Football Order: Executives Above Coaches

This represents a shift we are increasingly seeing in top-tier football. For decades, teams mistakenly delegated major sporting choices to subordinate staff such as coaches, scouts – even footballers. Perhaps it was once feasible for an up-and-coming, innovative manager with ideas and energy to join a club and see their vision through to completion. Yet how many companies have these guys established? How many mass redundancies have they managed? Far preferable to invest genuine authority where it belongs: the executive class, the casually dressed executives, the guys with impressive professional resumes. Better by far to decide the tactics in the boardroom and appoint a coach who will adapt their offering accordingly. If coaches were once chefs, they have become more like delivery personnel: not really responsible for the food, but still finally accountable if it arrives cold or leaks out to meet standards.

In the meantime, a coach's role has become less about crafting the philosophy and more about selling 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 the Champions League and secures domestic cups, and effectively gets sacked for speaking out. Wilfried Nancy sees his standing damaged whereas the people who appointed him continue to make errors indefinitely.

The Modern Corporate Game: Responsibility for the Few

And possibly in a small way this represents neoliberalism at work: the elevation of a gilded overclass who can never be wrong, whose choices remain sacrosanct, whose mistakes can always be sacked away without explanation. Appoint the system coach and then dismiss them for playing excessively 3-4-3. Hire the project manager and then discard him for requiring excessive time. And above all show gratitude; for the incremental increases in ticket costs, for your new player acquisitions, for the fact that the grownups – however well qualified – are in charge.