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Turns out Ruben Amorim was able to withstand losing against lower-league opposition. He weathered an important continental showpiece against a particularly poor Spurs sides in living memory. He could survive home defeats to domestic rivals, finishing 15th, his rigid approach, laying waste to some of the club’s most promising academy products, a poor winning percentage, calling the squad the poorest in Manchester United history. Yet, there existed one adversary with whom the Portuguese coach was not permitted to tango. If you challenge the sporting director, you had better succeed.

Unfortunately, like many a top-flight right-back in Blackburn’s title-winning campaign, the coach took on the executive and seems to have failed. Even the most casual observer will notice the paradoxical situation: a coach who frequently berated at his players for losing individual battles succumbing in the face of the white heat and animal charisma of a the Premier League’s most feared football executives.

In truth, this whole painful saga appears to portray the director in a whole new light. It may have been tempting, based on his brief stint in a similar role with the Saints, to view Jason Wilcox as little more than a drudge within the club's structure: 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. By masterfully outsmarting the club's celebrated manager, as he outmanoeuvred the unfortunate Dan Ashworth before him, he has proved himself as one of football's strategic masterminds: a strategic mind that United’s competitors will now be justifiably concerned.

The Tactical Clash Over Formation and Ideology

To illustrate, this was the director , after being involved in the leadership that hired the rigid 3-4-3 advocate the coach originally, played a key role in trying to persuade Amorim to abandon his favored 3-4-3. Naturally, these entreaties met a certain resistance. But perhaps such directives carry more weight when delivered by a man of a man the impeccable football pedigree of Jason Wilcox, holder of international appearances and a contributor to a championship team decades past.

Maybe eventually Jason Wilcox might agree to outline his reasoning publicly. Maybe one day questions may arise why Amorim is walking away with full compensation, with no penalty clause in place. The director seldom speaks in public, for excellent reasons. The true intellectuals of this sport – men like him – function on a plane exceeding our prosaic understanding. If he ever did speak, most likely all we would hear is a series of ultrasonic blips and complex calculations. Desiring an explanation is not equivalent to being prepared to comprehend it.

The Ultimate Authority In Command

But of course, by focusing our attention on the sporting director we are obscuring the true genius behind the modern United throne. Jason Wilcox is, in reality, merely executing the directives of his ultimate line manager the billionaire owner, who privately has emphasized his desire for a back four. It is reported, the owner has also suggested playing Bryan Mbeumo as a right wing-back. The owner is eager for the club to embrace data science and metrics. According to ESPN, in an executive meeting early in his minority ownership, he declared that the team's approach to football “shall be decided by this group”.

After all, Ratcliffe is an expert in these intricate footballing stuff, drawing from his previous experience in petrochemicals and yachting. Above all he remains immensely wealthy, and it is known, the rich are superior: more insightful, more wise, strategically brilliant, fundamentally superior. Who else would you trust to manage an enlightened programme of austerity, the building of a modern arena that looks a lot like an abstract design, the acquisition of a new striker?

A Modern Football Hierarchy: Executives Above Coaches

This is a trend that is becoming prevalent at the elite levels of the game. For decades, teams mistakenly delegated big footballing decisions to subordinate staff such as coaches, talent spotters – even footballers. Perhaps it was once feasible for a young, innovative manager with ideas and energy to go into a club and implement their plan through to completion. But how many businesses have these guys set up? How many large-scale layoffs have they managed? Better by far to place genuine authority where it rightly belongs: the leadership tier, the open-necked shirt brigade, the guys with impressive LinkedIn profiles. Better by far to determine the tactics in the boardroom and hire someone who can tailor their methods accordingly. If coaches were once chefs, they have become more like Deliveroo drivers: not really creating the product, but still finally accountable if it arrives cold or fails to meet standards.

Nowadays, a coach's role has become not about crafting the philosophy and more about selling it: the receptionist of the operation, the public face of an organisation they can do little to change. A coach at Chelsea leads a team of very young players into Europe and secures two medium-sized trophies, and essentially is dismissed for talking. A manager at Celtic sees his standing damaged whereas those individuals who hired him live to blunder indefinitely.

The Neoliberal Football: Responsibility Only for the Coaches

And perhaps in a small way this is simply corporate governance in action: the rise of a gilded elite who can never be wrong, whose choices are always untouchable, whose mistakes can always be sacked away without explanation. Hire the system coach only to fire them for using too much 3-4-3. Hire the project manager and then discard them for requiring excessive time. And above all show gratitude; for the incremental season ticket price rises, for the latest summer signings, for the fact that the grownups – however well qualified – are in charge.