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Tbecame clear the manager endured losing against Grimsby. He weathered an important European final versus a particularly poor Tottenham teams for many years. He could survive losing at home against West Ham and Wolves, a lowly league position, an unwavering system, laying waste to some of the club’s most promising homegrown talent, the 32% win rate, calling the squad the poorest in Manchester United history. But there was a single opponent against whom Ruben Amorim was not permitted to engage. You come at the sporting director, you had better succeed.

Unfortunately, like many a Premiership right-back during Blackburn Rovers' championship campaign, Amorim took on the executive and seems to have failed. Even the most casual observer can see the irony here: a coach who frequently berated his squad for losing individual battles crumbling when confronted by the white heat and animal charisma of a England's top division's most feared football executives.

In truth, this whole painful saga seems to paint Jason Wilcox in a different perspective. Perhaps it might have been tempting, given his brief stint in a similar role with the Saints, to view him as merely a drudge within the club's structure: an individual whose appointment was due largely to his friendship with ex-colleague Omar Berrada as any verifiable talent. How wrong everyone was. In brilliantly outmanoeuvring the club's celebrated manager, as he outmanoeuvred the unfortunate a previous executive before him, he has demonstrated as one of football's strategic masterminds: a strategic mind that the club's mid-table rivals will now be justifiably concerned.

The Tactical Conflict Over System & Philosophy

To illustrate, this was the director , after having been part of the hierarchy that hired the rigid 3-4-3 advocate the coach originally, played a key role in trying to persuade Amorim to ditch his beloved formation. Unsurprisingly, these pleas met a certain resistance. But perhaps these judgements carry more weight when delivered from the mouth with the impeccable football pedigree he possesses, a veteran of three England caps and a contributor to a championship team from 31 years ago.

Perhaps in time he may be persuaded to outline his reasoning to the rest of us. Maybe one day he might be asked regarding why the coach is departing with full compensation, without any penalty clause in place. The director speaks rarely in public, and with very good reason. The true intellectuals in football – men like Jason Wilcox – simply operate on a plane beyond our own mundane comprehension. Were he to speak, probably all we would hear would be ultrasonic blips and complex calculations. Wanting is not equivalent to being prepared to receive.

An Ultimate Power In the Throne

Naturally, in training our focus on Jason Wilcox we overlook the real power behind the club's current leadership. Jason Wilcox is, in reality, simply carrying out the directives of his ultimate line manager the billionaire owner, who privately has made very clear his desire for a four-man defense. It is reported, Ratcliffe has also proposed playing Bryan Mbeumo in a wing-back role. Ratcliffe is keen for the club to adopt analytics and analytics. According to ESPN, in an executive meeting early in his minority ownership, he declared that United’s style to football “will be decided in this room”.

Ultimately, Ratcliffe is a specialist in this technical footballing stuff, drawing from his previous experience in industry and yachting. Most importantly he remains incredibly rich, and it is known, the rich are superior: more perceptive, sagacious, strategically brilliant, fundamentally superior. Whom else would you trust to oversee an enlightened programme of cost-cutting, the building of a new stadium that looks similar to an abstract design, the signing of a new striker?

A Modern Football Hierarchy: Directors Above Coaches

This is a trend we are increasingly seeing in top-tier of the game. Historically, teams mistakenly entrusted major sporting choices to subordinate staff like managers, scouts – even footballers. Maybe previously possible for a young, innovative manager with ideas and energy to join a club and implement their plan supported to fruition. Yet how many companies have these guys established? How many mass redundancies have they managed? Better by far to invest genuine authority where it belongs: the leadership tier, the casually dressed executives, the individuals with impressive professional resumes. Better by far to decide the strategy by the directors and appoint a coach who will adapt their offering to suit. If coaches were formerly chefs, they are now more akin to Deliveroo drivers: not responsible for the product, yet finally accountable if it arrives cold or fails of the box.

Nowadays, their job is increasingly less about defining the vision and more about selling it: the front-facing representative on the front desk, the visible figurehead of an organisation they can do little to influence. A coach at Chelsea takes a squad of very young players into Europe and wins two medium-sized trophies, and effectively gets sacked for talking. A manager at Celtic finds his reputation ruined whereas those individuals who hired him continue to make errors another day.

A Modern Corporate Football: Accountability for the Few

And perhaps on some microcosmic level this represents neoliberalism in action: the rise of a gilded elite who are infallible, whose choices are always sacrosanct, whose errors can always be resolved by sacking without justification. Hire the 3-4-3 coach only to dismiss them for using too much that system. Hire the project manager and then bin him for requiring too long. And most importantly show gratitude; for your modest season ticket price rises, for the latest player acquisitions, for the reality that the adults – however well qualified – remain in control.