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Turns out the manager endured a loss to Grimsby. Survive a decisive European final versus one of the worst Tottenham teams for many years. He could survive losing at home against domestic rivals, finishing 15th, his rigid approach, laying waste to the team's best homegrown talent, the 32% win rate, calling the squad the worst in Manchester United history. Yet, there existed a single opponent with whom the Portuguese coach was not permitted to dance. You come at the sporting director, and you best not miss.

Unfortunately, like many a top-flight right-back in Blackburn’s title-winning campaign, the coach took on the executive and seems to have missed. Even the most distracted of readers will notice the paradoxical situation: a coach who frequently berated his squad for losing one-on-one duels succumbing in the face of the intense pressure and formidable presence of one of England's top division's most feared football executives.

In truth, this whole bruising episode seems to paint Jason Wilcox in a whole new light. It may have been easy, given his nine months in a similar role at Southampton, to regard Jason Wilcox as little more than a drudge in the United exoskeleton: an individual whose appointment was due as much to his close relationship with his former boss a fellow executive as any demonstrable skill. How mistaken we all were. By masterfully outsmarting United’s feted manager, as he outmanoeuvred the hapless Dan Ashworth earlier, Jason Wilcox has proved himself as one of football's strategic masterminds: a tactical intellect that the club's competitors are now rightly wary.

A Strategic Conflict Over Formation & Philosophy

To illustrate, this was the director who being involved in the leadership that appointed the rigid 3-4-3 advocate the coach in the first place, was instrumental in attempting to convince him to ditch his beloved formation. Unsurprisingly, these pleas met a certain resistance. However, such directives carry more weight when issued from the mouth with the impeccable soccer background of Jason Wilcox, a veteran of three England caps and a contributor to a championship team decades past.

Perhaps in time Jason Wilcox might agree to explain his reasoning publicly. Perhaps at some point he might be asked why Amorim is departing with full compensation, without any compensation reduction clause activated. But Jason Wilcox speaks rarely publicly, and with very good reason. The real thinkers in football – men like Jason Wilcox – function on a plane beyond our own prosaic understanding. Were he to speak, most likely we would perceive is a series of high-frequency signals and four-dimensional whirring. Wanting is not quite the same as being ready to comprehend it.

An Supreme Power In Command

Naturally, by focusing our attention on Jason Wilcox we are obscuring the true genius behind the club's current leadership. The director is, after all, merely executing the directives of his ultimate superior the billionaire owner, who in private has emphasized his desire for a four-man defense. According to reports, Ratcliffe has also proposed deploying the forward in a wing-back role. The owner is eager for United to adopt data science and metrics. According to ESPN, in an executive meeting soon after his minority ownership, he announced that the team's approach to football “shall be decided by this group”.

After all, Ratcliffe is a specialist in these intricate footballing stuff, drawing from his background in industry and yachting. Most importantly he is incredibly rich, and as we all know, the wealthy are the best of us: more perceptive, more wise, more tactically astute, fundamentally superior. Who else would you trust to manage an enlightened programme of austerity, the construction of a modern arena that looks a lot like an abstract design, the acquisition of Benjamin Sesko?

The Modern Soccer Order: Executives Over Managers

This is a trend we are increasingly seeing in top-tier of the game. For decades, clubs foolishly entrusted major sporting choices to low-level employees such as coaches, scouts – players themselves. Maybe previously possible for a young, visionary coach with a philosophy and drive to go into an organization and see their vision through to completion. Yet how many companies have such individuals set up? How many mass redundancies have they overseen? Better by far to place the real power where it rightly belongs: the leadership tier, the open-necked shirt brigade, the individuals with impressive professional resumes. It is wiser to decide the tactics in the boardroom and hire a coach who can tailor their offering to suit. If coaches were once chefs, they have become more like delivery personnel: not creating the product, but still finally accountable should it be delivered poorly or leaks out of the box.

In the meantime, their job is increasingly not about crafting the philosophy and more about selling it: the receptionist on the front desk, the visible figurehead for a club they can do little to influence. A coach at Chelsea leads a team of literal children into the Champions League and secures two medium-sized trophies, and essentially is dismissed for talking. A manager at Celtic sees his reputation ruined whereas the people who hired him continue to make errors indefinitely.

A Neoliberal Game: Accountability for the Coaches

And perhaps in a small way this is simply corporate governance at work: the elevation of a privileged overclass who are infallible, whose choices remain untouchable, whose mistakes can always be sacked away without justification. Hire the system coach and then fire them for using excessively 3-4-3. Bring in the process guy and later discard him for requiring excessive time. And most importantly show gratitude; for your modest season ticket price rises, for your new summer signings, for the fact that the adults – however well qualified – remain in control.