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Iturns out Ruben Amorim was able to withstand losing against Grimsby. Survive an important continental showpiece against a particularly poor Spurs sides for many years. He could survive losing at home to West Ham and Wolves, a lowly league position, his rigid approach, laying waste to some of the club’s most promising academy products, the 32% win rate, calling his team the poorest the club has ever seen. But there was one adversary with whom Ruben Amorim was not permitted to dance. You come at the sporting director, you had better succeed.

Regrettably, like many a Premiership right-back in Blackburn’s title-winning campaign, the coach took on Jason Wilcox and seems to have failed. Even the most casual observer can see the paradoxical situation: a manager who often railed his squad for losing one-on-one duels crumbling when confronted by the intense pressure and animal charisma of a the Premier League’s most intimidating sporting directors.

And frankly, this entire painful saga appears to portray Jason Wilcox in a different perspective. Perhaps it might have been easy, given his brief stint of experience at Southampton, to regard Jason Wilcox as merely a functionary in the United exoskeleton: an individual who owed his position as much to his close relationship with his former boss Omar Berrada as any verifiable talent. How wrong we all were. In brilliantly outsmarting the club's celebrated manager, just as he bested the hapless Dan Ashworth earlier, he has demonstrated as one of the sport’s strategic masterminds: a tactical intellect of which United’s mid-table rivals are now rightly wary.

The Strategic Conflict Over Formation & Philosophy

To illustrate, it was Jason Wilcox , after being involved in the leadership that appointed the rigid 3-4-3 advocate Amorim in the first place, was instrumental in attempting to convince him to ditch his beloved formation. Unsurprisingly, these pleas met a certain resistance. But perhaps such directives carry more weight when issued from the mouth of a man the impeccable football pedigree he possesses, holder of three England caps and a role in a title-winning side decades past.

Maybe eventually Jason Wilcox may be persuaded to explain his thought processes publicly. Perhaps at some point he might be asked why Amorim is walking away with a full payout, without any penalty clause activated. But Jason Wilcox speaks rarely publicly, for excellent reasons. The real thinkers of this sport – men like Jason Wilcox – function at a level beyond our own mundane comprehension. Were he to speak, probably all we would hear is a series of ultrasonic blips and four-dimensional whirring. Wanting is not the same as being ready to comprehend it.

An Ultimate Authority Behind the Throne

But of course, by focusing our attention on the sporting director we are obscuring the true genius behind the club's current leadership. Jason Wilcox is, after all, simply carrying out the commands of his superior the billionaire owner, who privately has emphasized his desire for a back four. According to reports, the owner has also proposed deploying the forward in a wing-back role. The owner is eager for the club to embrace analytics and metrics. Per reports, in an executive meeting soon after his minority ownership, he declared that the team's approach of play “will be decided by this group”.

After all, Ratcliffe is an expert in this technical football matters, drawing from his background in industry and sailing. Above all he remains immensely wealthy, and it is known, the wealthy are the best of us: more perceptive, more wise, more tactically astute, simply better. Whom else could one trust to oversee a strategic plan of cost-cutting, the building of a new stadium that appears a lot like an abstract design, the acquisition of Benjamin Sesko?

The Modern Soccer Order: Directors Above Managers

This is a trend that is becoming prevalent in top-tier of the game. For decades, clubs foolishly entrusted big footballing decisions to subordinate staff such as coaches, talent spotters – even footballers. Maybe previously possible for an up-and-coming, innovative manager with a philosophy and energy 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 place genuine authority where it rightly belongs: the leadership tier, the casually dressed executives, the individuals with the jaw-dropping LinkedIn profiles. Better by far to decide the tactics in the boardroom and hire someone who can tailor their offering accordingly. If managers were formerly chefs, they have become more like delivery personnel: not really creating the food, yet ultimately answerable should it be delivered cold or leaks out to meet standards.

Nowadays, their job is increasingly less about defining the vision and more about selling it: the front-facing representative on the front desk, the visible figurehead of an organisation they have minimal power to change. Enzo Maresca takes a squad of very young players into the Champions League and wins domestic cups, and effectively is dismissed for speaking out. A manager at Celtic sees his standing damaged whereas those individuals who hired him continue to make errors another day.

A Neoliberal Football: Accountability for the Coaches

And perhaps on some microcosmic level this is simply corporate governance in action: the elevation of a gilded elite who can never be wrong, whose decisions remain sacrosanct, whose mistakes can invariably be sacked away without justification. Hire the system coach only to dismiss them for playing too much that system. Bring in the project manager and later bin him for requiring too long. And most importantly show gratitude; for the incremental season ticket price rises, for the latest player acquisitions, for the fact that the adults – however well qualified – remain in control.