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Transpired Ruben Amorim was able to withstand a loss to lower-league opposition. Survive losing a crucial European final versus a particularly poor Tottenham teams in living memory. He withstood losing at home against West Ham and Wolves, a lowly league position, his rigid approach, undermining some of the club’s best academy products, a poor winning percentage, labeling the squad the worst in Manchester United history. But there was a single opponent with whom the Portuguese coach would not be allowed to tango. If you challenge Jason Wilcox, you had better succeed.

Unfortunately, like many a Premiership right-back during Blackburn Rovers' title-winning campaign, the coach came at the executive and appears to have missed. The most distracted of readers will notice the paradoxical situation: a coach who often railed at his players for failing in one-on-one duels succumbing when confronted by the white heat and formidable presence of a England's top division's most feared football executives.

In truth, this whole bruising episode seems to paint the director in a whole new light. It may have been tempting, given his nine months of experience with the Saints, to view Jason Wilcox as little more than a functionary in the United exoskeleton: a man whose appointment was due as much to his close relationship with ex-colleague Omar Berrada as any verifiable talent. How wrong everyone was. In brilliantly outmanoeuvring the club's celebrated head coach, just as he bested the hapless a previous executive before him, he has proved himself as one of football's true generals: a strategic mind that United’s competitors will now be rightly wary.

The Strategic Clash Over Formation & Ideology

To illustrate, this was the director , after being involved in the leadership that hired the rigid 3-4-3 advocate the coach in the first place, was instrumental in trying to persuade him to ditch his beloved 3-4-3. Unsurprisingly, these pleas were resisted. However, such directives carry more weight when issued by a man of a man the impeccable football pedigree of Jason Wilcox, a veteran of international appearances and a contributor to a title-winning side from 31 years ago.

Maybe eventually he might agree to explain his reasoning to the rest of us. Maybe one day he might be asked why Amorim is departing with full compensation, without any penalty clause in place. The director seldom speaks publicly, for excellent reasons. The true intellectuals in football – men like him – function on a plane exceeding our mundane comprehension. If he ever did speak, most likely all we would hear would be ultrasonic blips and four-dimensional whirring. Wanting is not quite equivalent to being prepared to receive.

An Supreme Power Behind the Throne

Naturally, by focusing our attention on the sporting director we are obscuring the real power behind the modern United throne. Jason Wilcox is, in reality, merely executing the directives of his line manager the billionaire owner, who in private has made very clear his desire for a back four. According to reports, the owner has also proposed playing Bryan Mbeumo in a wing-back role. Ratcliffe is keen for the club to embrace data science and metrics. According to ESPN, during a leadership summit soon after his minority ownership, he announced that United’s style of play “shall be determined in this room”.

After all, Sir Jim is a specialist in these intricate footballing stuff, drawing from his previous experience in industry and sailing. Above all he remains incredibly rich, and it is known, the wealthy are superior: more perceptive, sagacious, strategically brilliant, simply better. Who else would you trust to manage an enlightened programme of austerity, the construction of a new stadium that appears a lot like an abstract design, the acquisition of Benjamin Sesko?

A Modern Football Order: Directors Over Coaches

This is a trend that is becoming prevalent at the elite levels football. For decades, teams mistakenly entrusted big footballing decisions to subordinate staff like managers, scouts – players themselves. Maybe previously feasible for an up-and-coming, visionary coach with ideas and energy to join a club and see their vision supported to fruition. Yet how many businesses have such individuals set up? What number of mass redundancies have they overseen? Better by far to invest genuine authority where it rightly belongs: the executive class, the open-necked shirt brigade, the guys with impressive LinkedIn profiles. It is wiser to determine the strategy by the directors and hire a coach who will adapt their offering to suit. If managers were once chefs, they have become more like delivery personnel: not really responsible for the product, but still ultimately answerable if it arrives cold or fails to meet standards.

Nowadays, their job is increasingly less about defining the vision and more about marketing it: the receptionist on the front desk, the public face of an organisation they have minimal power to influence. A coach at Chelsea takes a squad of very young players into Europe and wins two medium-sized trophies, and essentially is dismissed for speaking out. Wilfried Nancy sees his standing damaged while the people who hired him continue to make errors another day.

A Neoliberal Game: Responsibility for the Few

And possibly on some microcosmic level this represents neoliberalism at work: the elevation of a privileged overclass who can never be wrong, whose choices are always sacrosanct, whose mistakes can always be resolved by sacking without justification. Appoint the 3-4-3 coach only to fire them for using excessively that system. Hire the process guy and then bin him for requiring excessive time. And above all show gratitude; for your modest increases in ticket costs, for the latest player acquisitions, for the fact that the adults – however well qualified – are in charge.