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Turns out Ruben Amorim could survive defeat by lower-league opposition. He weathered losing a crucial European final against one of the worst Tottenham teams for many years. He could survive home defeats against domestic rivals, a lowly league position, his rigid approach, squandering some of the club’s best homegrown talent, a poor winning percentage, labeling his team the poorest in Manchester United history. Yet, there existed a single opponent against whom Ruben Amorim was not permitted to dance. You come at Jason Wilcox, you had better succeed.

Regrettably, similar to numerous Premiership defender during Blackburn Rovers' championship campaign, the coach took on Jason Wilcox and appears to have failed. The most casual observer can see the paradoxical situation: a manager who frequently berated at his players for failing in individual battles crumbling in the face of the intense pressure and formidable presence of a the Premier League’s most intimidating sporting directors.

And frankly, this whole bruising episode seems to paint the director in a whole new light. It may have been easy, based on his nine months of experience at Southampton, to regard him as little more than a functionary in the United exoskeleton: an individual who owed his position as much to his friendship with his former boss a fellow executive as any verifiable talent. How mistaken we all were. In brilliantly outmanoeuvring United’s feted manager, as he outmanoeuvred the unfortunate Dan Ashworth before him, Jason Wilcox has proved himself to be among football's strategic masterminds: a strategic mind that United’s mid-table rivals will now be justifiably concerned.

A Strategic Conflict Over System and Philosophy

For example, it was Jason Wilcox who being involved in the leadership that appointed the 3-4-3 fundamentalist the coach originally, was instrumental in trying to persuade Amorim to abandon his beloved formation. Naturally, these pleas met a certain resistance. However, such directives hold greater authority when issued from the mouth of a man the impeccable soccer background of Jason Wilcox, a veteran of three England caps and a contributor to a championship team decades past.

Maybe eventually he may be persuaded to explain his thought processes publicly. Maybe one day questions may arise regarding why the coach is walking away with full compensation, with no penalty clause activated. The director speaks rarely in public, and with very good reason. The true intellectuals in football – men like him – simply operate at a level beyond our own mundane comprehension. If he ever did speak, probably we would perceive would be high-frequency signals and four-dimensional whirring. Desiring an explanation is not quite equivalent to being prepared to comprehend it.

The Supreme Power Behind Command

Naturally, by focusing our attention on the sporting director we are obscuring the real power behind the club's current leadership. The director is, after all, merely executing the directives of his line manager Sir Jim Ratcliffe, who privately has emphasized his preference for a back four. It is reported, Ratcliffe has also suggested deploying the forward in a wing-back role. Ratcliffe is keen for United to embrace data science and metrics. According to ESPN, in an executive meeting soon after his minority ownership, he declared that United’s style to football “shall be determined by this group”.

Ultimately, Ratcliffe is a specialist in these intricate football matters, leveraging his background in petrochemicals and sailing. Most importantly he remains immensely wealthy, and it is known, the rich are the best of us: more perceptive, sagacious, strategically brilliant, simply better. Who else would you trust to oversee an enlightened programme of cost-cutting, the building of a modern arena that appears similar to someone’s leftover knitting, the acquisition of a new striker?

The Modern Football Order: Executives Over Managers

This is a trend we are increasingly seeing at the elite levels of the game. For decades, teams mistakenly entrusted major sporting choices to low-level employees such as coaches, scouts – even footballers. Perhaps it was once possible for a young, innovative manager with a philosophy and drive to join a club and see their vision supported to fruition. Yet how many companies have such individuals established? How many large-scale layoffs have they managed? Better by far to invest genuine authority where it rightly belongs: the executive class, the casually dressed executives, the individuals with the jaw-dropping professional resumes. Better by far to decide the tactics by the directors and hire a coach who will adapt their offering accordingly. If managers were formerly chefs, they are now more akin to delivery personnel: not responsible for the food, yet ultimately answerable should it be delivered poorly or fails to meet standards.

Nowadays, their job is increasingly not about defining the vision and more about marketing it: the front-facing representative of the operation, the public face for a club they can do little to influence. A coach at Chelsea takes a squad of very young players into Europe and secures domestic cups, and essentially is dismissed for talking. A manager at Celtic finds his standing damaged whereas those individuals who appointed him continue to make errors indefinitely.

The Neoliberal Game: Responsibility Only for the Coaches

And possibly on some microcosmic level this is simply corporate governance in action: the rise of a gilded overclass who can never be wrong, whose choices remain untouchable, whose errors can always be sacked away without justification. Hire the system coach only to dismiss them for playing excessively that system. Hire the project manager and then bin him for requiring too long. And most importantly show gratitude; for the incremental increases in ticket costs, for your new summer signings, for the fact that the adults – however well qualified – remain in control.