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Tbecame clear Ruben Amorim was able to withstand a loss to Grimsby. He weathered a decisive European final against a particularly poor Tottenham teams for many years. He withstood home defeats to West Ham and Wolves, a lowly league position, an unwavering system, undermining the team's best academy products, the 32% win rate, calling his team the poorest in Manchester United history. Yet, there existed a single opponent against whom Ruben Amorim would not be allowed to engage. If you challenge the sporting director, you had better succeed.

Unfortunately, like many a top-flight right-back during Blackburn Rovers' championship campaign, Amorim came at Jason Wilcox and appears to have missed. The most distracted of readers will notice the paradoxical situation: a manager who frequently berated his squad for losing one-on-one duels succumbing in the face of the intense pressure and animal charisma of a England's top division's most intimidating sporting directors.

And frankly, this whole 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 at Southampton, to regard Jason Wilcox as little more than a drudge within the club's structure: an individual who owed his position as much to his close relationship with ex-colleague a fellow executive rather than any verifiable talent. How wrong everyone was. By masterfully outsmarting the club's celebrated manager, just as he bested the unfortunate a previous executive earlier, he has demonstrated as one of the sport’s true generals: a strategic mind of which United’s competitors are now rightly wary.

A Tactical Clash Regarding Formation & Philosophy

To illustrate, it was Jason Wilcox who having been part of the leadership that hired the 3-4-3 fundamentalist Amorim originally, played a key role in attempting to convince him to ditch his favored formation. Unsurprisingly, these entreaties faced pushback. But perhaps such directives hold greater authority when issued by a man of a man the unimpeachable football pedigree he possesses, a veteran of international appearances and a contributor to a championship team decades past.

Maybe eventually he may be persuaded to outline his reasoning to the rest of us. Maybe one day he might be asked why Amorim is walking away with a full payout, with no compensation reduction clause activated. The director seldom speaks in public, for excellent reasons. The true intellectuals in football – men like Jason Wilcox – simply operate at a level exceeding our prosaic understanding. If he ever did speak, probably all we would hear would be high-frequency signals and complex calculations. Wanting is not quite the same as being prepared to receive.

An Ultimate Power In the Throne

But of course, by focusing our attention on Jason Wilcox we are obscuring the real power behind the modern United throne. Jason Wilcox is, after all, merely executing the commands of his ultimate superior the billionaire owner, who in private has made very clear his desire for a back four. According to reports, the owner has also suggested deploying the forward in a wing-back role. The owner is eager for United to adopt analytics and metrics. Per reports, during a leadership summit early in his investment, he announced that the team's approach to football “shall be decided in this room”.

Ultimately, Sir Jim is an expert in this technical footballing stuff, drawing from his background in petrochemicals and yachting. Most importantly he remains immensely wealthy, and it is known, the wealthy are the best of us: more perceptive, sagacious, more tactically astute, fundamentally better. Whom else would you trust to manage an enlightened programme of cost-cutting, the construction of a modern arena that looks similar to someone’s leftover knitting, the acquisition of a new striker?

The New Soccer Hierarchy: Executives Over Managers

This represents a shift we are increasingly seeing in top-tier of the game. Historically, clubs foolishly delegated major sporting choices to low-level employees like managers, talent spotters – players themselves. Maybe previously feasible for an up-and-coming, visionary coach with ideas and energy to go into an organization and implement their plan supported to fruition. But how many companies have such individuals set up? How many large-scale layoffs have they managed? Far preferable to place genuine authority where it belongs: the executive class, the open-necked shirt brigade, the guys with impressive LinkedIn profiles. Better by far to decide the strategy by the directors and hire a coach who will adapt their offering to suit. If coaches were once chefs, they are now more like delivery personnel: not really responsible for the food, but still ultimately answerable if it arrives poorly or fails of the box.

In the meantime, a coach's role is increasingly not about defining the vision and more about marketing it: the receptionist of the operation, the visible figurehead of an organisation they have minimal power to influence. A coach at Chelsea leads a team of very young players into Europe and wins two medium-sized trophies, and essentially is dismissed for talking. A manager at Celtic finds his reputation ruined while the people who hired him continue to make errors another day.

The Neoliberal Game: Accountability Only for the Few

And possibly in a small way this represents corporate governance in action: the rise of a privileged elite who are infallible, whose decisions are always untouchable, whose mistakes can invariably be resolved by sacking without explanation. Appoint the system coach and then fire him for using excessively that system. Hire the process guy and later bin them for requiring too long. And most importantly show gratitude; for your modest season ticket price rises, for the latest summer signings, for the reality that the adults – regardless of their expertise – are in charge.