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Transpired Ruben Amorim endured defeat by lower-league opposition. Survive losing a crucial continental showpiece versus one of the worst Tottenham teams for many years. He withstood home defeats to domestic rivals, a lowly league position, the tactical inflexibility, laying waste to some of the club’s most promising homegrown talent, a poor winning percentage, calling his team the worst in Manchester United history. But there was a single opponent with whom the Portuguese coach was not permitted to tango. If you challenge the sporting director, you had better succeed.

Regrettably, similar to numerous top-flight right-back in Blackburn’s title-winning 1994-95 season, the coach came at the executive and seems to have failed. Even the most casual observer can see the paradoxical situation: a coach who frequently berated at his players for failing in individual battles succumbing in the face of the white heat and animal charisma of a the Premier League’s most intimidating sporting directors.

And frankly, this entire bruising episode seems to paint the director in a whole new light. It may have been easy, based on his nine months in a similar role at Southampton, to view Jason Wilcox as little more than a drudge in the United exoskeleton: a man who owed his position largely to his friendship with his former boss Omar Berrada rather than any verifiable talent. How wrong everyone was. By masterfully outsmarting United’s feted manager, as he outmanoeuvred the hapless Dan Ashworth before him, he has proved himself to be among the sport’s true generals: a tactical intellect that United’s competitors are now justifiably concerned.

A Tactical Clash Regarding Formation and Ideology

For example, it was Jason Wilcox , after being involved in the leadership that appointed the 3-4-3 fundamentalist the coach originally, played a key role in attempting to convince him to ditch his favored 3-4-3. Unsurprisingly, these pleas faced pushback. However, such directives hold greater authority when delivered from the mouth with the unimpeachable football pedigree of Jason Wilcox, a veteran of three England caps and a contributor to a title-winning side decades past.

Perhaps in time he might agree to explain his reasoning publicly. Perhaps at some point questions may arise regarding why the coach is walking away with full compensation, without any compensation reduction clause in place. But Jason Wilcox speaks rarely publicly, for excellent reasons. The real thinkers in football – men like Jason Wilcox – function on a plane exceeding our prosaic understanding. If he ever did speak, most likely all we would hear would be ultrasonic blips and four-dimensional whirring. Desiring an explanation is not quite the same as being ready to receive.

An Ultimate Power In the Throne

Naturally, in training our focus on Jason Wilcox we are obscuring the real power behind the modern United throne. Jason Wilcox is, after all, merely executing the directives of his line manager Sir Jim Ratcliffe, who in private has emphasized his preference for a back four. According to reports, Ratcliffe has also proposed playing Bryan Mbeumo as a right wing-back. The owner is eager for United to adopt analytics and metrics. According to ESPN, in an executive meeting soon after his minority ownership, he announced that United’s style of play “shall be decided by this group”.

After all, Ratcliffe is an expert in these intricate football matters, leveraging his background in industry and sailing. Most importantly he remains incredibly rich, and it is known, the wealthy are the best of us: more perceptive, more wise, strategically brilliant, simply better. Who else would you trust to oversee an enlightened programme of austerity, the construction of a modern arena that looks a lot like someone’s leftover knitting, the acquisition of Benjamin Sesko?

A New Football Hierarchy: Executives Over Managers

This is a trend we are increasingly seeing in top-tier football. For decades, clubs foolishly delegated major sporting choices to subordinate staff such as coaches, scouts – even footballers. Perhaps it was once possible for a young, innovative manager with ideas and drive to join a club and see their vision through to completion. Yet how many businesses have such individuals set up? How many mass redundancies have they managed? Better by far to invest the real power where it belongs: the leadership tier, the casually dressed executives, the individuals with impressive LinkedIn profiles. It is wiser to decide the tactics by the directors and appoint someone who will adapt their offering to suit. If coaches were once chefs, they are now more like Deliveroo drivers: not responsible for the food, but still ultimately answerable should it be delivered cold or fails of the box.

In the meantime, their job has become not about crafting the philosophy and more about selling it: the front-facing representative on the front desk, the public face of an organisation they have minimal power to change. A coach at Chelsea takes a squad of very young players into Europe and secures domestic cups, and essentially is dismissed for speaking out. Wilfried Nancy finds his reputation ruined while those individuals who appointed him live to blunder another day.

A Neoliberal Football: Responsibility for the Coaches

And possibly in a small way this represents corporate governance in action: the elevation of a gilded elite who can never be wrong, whose decisions are always sacrosanct, whose errors can always be sacked away without justification. Appoint the system coach only to fire him for playing excessively that system. Bring in the project manager and then bin him for taking too long. And most importantly be grateful; for your modest season ticket price rises, for your new player acquisitions, for the reality that the grownups – however well qualified – are in charge.