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Itranspired he could survive a loss to Grimsby. He weathered losing a crucial European final versus one of the worst Spurs sides for many years. He could survive losing at home to domestic rivals, a lowly league position, his rigid approach, laying waste to the team's best academy products, the 32% win rate, calling his team the poorest the club has ever seen. Yet, there existed one adversary with whom Ruben Amorim was not permitted to engage. You come at the sporting director, you had better succeed.

Regrettably, similar to numerous top-flight right-back during Blackburn Rovers' championship campaign, Amorim took on Jason Wilcox and appears 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 when confronted by the white heat and animal charisma of one of the Premier League’s most feared sporting directors.

And frankly, this whole painful saga appears to portray the director in a whole new light. Perhaps it might have been easy, given his nine months in a similar role with the Saints, to view him as merely a functionary in the United exoskeleton: an individual whose appointment was due largely to his friendship with his former boss Omar Berrada as any demonstrable skill. How mistaken we all were. By masterfully outsmarting United’s feted manager, just as he bested the unfortunate a previous executive before him, he has proved himself as one of the sport’s true generals: a tactical intellect that the club's competitors will now be rightly wary.

A Strategic Clash Regarding Formation & Ideology

To illustrate, it was Jason Wilcox who being involved in the leadership that hired the 3-4-3 fundamentalist the coach in the first place, was instrumental in trying to persuade Amorim to abandon his beloved formation. Naturally, these pleas were resisted. However, such directives carry more weight when issued by a man of a man the unimpeachable soccer background of Jason Wilcox, holder of three England caps and a role in a championship team decades past.

Perhaps in time he may be persuaded to outline his reasoning to the rest of us. Perhaps at some point questions may arise regarding why the coach is departing with a full payout, with no compensation reduction clause in place. But Jason Wilcox seldom speaks publicly, for excellent reasons. The true intellectuals of this sport – individuals such as Jason Wilcox – function on a plane beyond our own prosaic understanding. Were he to speak, most likely all we would hear would be ultrasonic blips and complex calculations. Wanting is not quite the same as being prepared to receive.

The Ultimate Power Behind the Throne

But of course, by focusing our attention on Jason Wilcox we overlook the true genius behind the club's current leadership. Jason Wilcox is, after all, merely executing the commands of his line manager Sir Jim Ratcliffe, who in private has emphasized his preference for a four-man defense. According to reports, Ratcliffe has also suggested deploying the forward in a wing-back role. The owner is eager for the club to adopt analytics and analytics. According to ESPN, during a leadership summit early in his minority ownership, he announced that United’s style of play “will be decided in this room”.

Ultimately, Ratcliffe is an expert in this technical footballing stuff, leveraging his background in petrochemicals and sailing. Most importantly he remains incredibly rich, and as we all know, the rich are the best of us: more insightful, sagacious, strategically brilliant, fundamentally better. Who else would you trust to oversee a strategic plan of austerity, the construction of a new stadium that looks similar to an abstract design, the signing of Benjamin Sesko?

The New Soccer Hierarchy: Directors Above Coaches

This represents a shift that is becoming prevalent in top-tier football. For decades, clubs foolishly delegated major sporting choices to subordinate staff like managers, scouts – even footballers. Maybe previously feasible for a young, innovative manager with a philosophy and energy to join a club and implement their plan supported to fruition. But how many businesses have these guys established? What number of large-scale layoffs have they overseen? Better by far to invest the real power where it rightly belongs: the leadership tier, the open-necked shirt brigade, the individuals with impressive LinkedIn profiles. Better by far to decide the strategy by the directors and appoint someone who can tailor their methods to suit. If coaches were once chefs, they have become more akin to Deliveroo drivers: not creating the product, yet finally accountable should it be delivered cold or leaks out of the box.

Nowadays, their job is increasingly not about crafting the philosophy and more about marketing it: the front-facing representative on the front desk, the public face for a club they have minimal power to influence. Enzo Maresca takes a squad of literal children into the Champions League and secures domestic cups, and essentially gets sacked for talking. Wilfried Nancy finds his reputation ruined whereas those individuals who appointed him continue to make errors indefinitely.

A Neoliberal Football: Accountability Only for the Coaches

And possibly on some microcosmic level this represents neoliberalism at work: the elevation of a privileged elite who can never be wrong, whose decisions are always untouchable, whose mistakes can always be sacked away without justification. Hire the 3-4-3 coach only to fire them for playing too much that system. Bring in the process guy and then bin them for requiring too long. And most importantly show gratitude; for your modest increases in ticket costs, for the latest player acquisitions, for the reality that the adults – however well qualified – remain in control.