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Tbecame clear Ruben Amorim endured losing against lower-league opposition. He weathered an important continental showpiece against one of the worst Tottenham teams in living memory. He withstood home defeats to domestic rivals, a lowly league position, his rigid approach, squandering some of the club’s most promising academy products, a poor winning percentage, labeling his team the worst the club has ever seen. But there was a single opponent against whom the Portuguese coach was not permitted to engage. If you challenge Jason Wilcox, you had better succeed.

Regrettably, like many a top-flight right-back during Blackburn Rovers' championship 1994-95 season, Amorim came at the executive and seems to have missed. Even the most casual observer will notice the paradoxical situation: a manager who frequently berated at his players for failing in one-on-one duels succumbing when confronted by the white heat and formidable presence of a the Premier League’s most feared football executives.

In truth, this entire bruising episode seems to paint the director in a different perspective. Perhaps it might have been easy, based on his nine months in a similar role with the Saints, to view him as merely a drudge in the United exoskeleton: a man who owed his position largely to his close relationship with his former boss a fellow executive as any demonstrable skill. How mistaken everyone was. In brilliantly outmanoeuvring United’s feted manager, as he outmanoeuvred the unfortunate a previous executive before him, he has proved himself to be among football's strategic masterminds: a strategic mind of which the club's competitors are now justifiably concerned.

A Strategic Conflict Regarding System & Philosophy

To illustrate, this was Jason Wilcox , after having been part of the hierarchy that appointed the 3-4-3 fundamentalist the coach originally, was instrumental in trying to persuade Amorim to ditch his beloved 3-4-3. Unsurprisingly, these entreaties met a certain resistance. But perhaps these judgements hold greater authority when issued by a man of a man the impeccable football pedigree he possesses, a veteran of international appearances and a role in a title-winning side from 31 years ago.

Maybe eventually he may be persuaded to explain his thought processes publicly. Maybe one day he might be asked why Amorim is departing with full compensation, without any penalty clause activated. But Jason Wilcox speaks rarely publicly, and with very good reason. The true intellectuals of this sport – individuals such as him – function on a plane beyond our own prosaic understanding. If he ever did speak, most likely all we would hear would be high-frequency signals and complex calculations. Wanting is not the same as being prepared to receive.

The Supreme Authority In Command

But of course, by focusing our attention on the sporting director we are obscuring the real power behind the modern United throne. The director is, after all, merely executing the commands of his line manager Sir Jim Ratcliffe, who privately has emphasized his desire for a back four. It is reported, Ratcliffe has also suggested deploying the forward in a wing-back role. Ratcliffe is keen for United to embrace data science and analytics. According to ESPN, in an executive meeting soon after his minority ownership, he announced that the team's approach to football “will be decided in this room”.

Ultimately, Ratcliffe is an expert in this technical football matters, leveraging his previous experience in industry and sailing. Above all he is immensely wealthy, and it is known, the rich are the best of us: more insightful, more wise, more tactically astute, fundamentally better. Whom else would you trust to oversee a strategic plan of austerity, the building of a new stadium that appears a lot like an abstract design, the acquisition of a new striker?

The Modern Football Order: Directors Above Managers

This represents a shift we are increasingly seeing at the elite levels of the game. Historically, clubs foolishly delegated big footballing decisions to subordinate staff such as coaches, scouts – players themselves. Maybe previously possible for an up-and-coming, visionary coach with a philosophy and drive to go into a club and implement their plan through to completion. Yet how many businesses have these guys established? How many large-scale layoffs have they managed? Better by far to place the real power where it belongs: the executive class, the open-necked shirt brigade, the guys with the jaw-dropping professional resumes. It is wiser to decide the tactics by the directors and hire a coach who will adapt their methods to suit. If coaches were once chefs, they have become more akin to Deliveroo drivers: not creating the product, yet finally accountable if it arrives cold or fails to meet standards.

Nowadays, a coach's role is increasingly less about crafting the philosophy and more about marketing it: the front-facing representative of the operation, the public face for a club they can do little to influence. A coach at Chelsea takes a squad of very young players into Europe and secures two medium-sized trophies, and essentially gets sacked for talking. A manager at Celtic sees his standing damaged whereas the people who appointed him live to blunder another day.

A Neoliberal Game: Responsibility Only for the Coaches

And perhaps on some microcosmic level this represents corporate governance in action: the elevation of a gilded overclass who are infallible, whose choices remain sacrosanct, whose mistakes can invariably be resolved by sacking without explanation. Appoint the 3-4-3 coach only to fire him for playing excessively 3-4-3. Hire the project manager and then bin him for requiring too long. And above all be grateful; for the incremental increases in ticket costs, for the latest player acquisitions, for the reality that the adults – regardless of their expertise – remain in control.