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Transpired Ruben Amorim could survive defeat by lower-league opposition. Survive a decisive continental showpiece against a particularly poor Tottenham teams in living memory. He could survive losing at home to West Ham and Wolves, a lowly league position, his rigid approach, laying waste to the team's most promising academy products, the 32% win rate, labeling the squad the poorest the club has ever seen. But there was a single opponent with whom Ruben Amorim was not permitted to dance. You come at Jason Wilcox, you had better succeed.

Regrettably, similar to numerous top-flight right-back in Blackburn’s title-winning campaign, Amorim took on Jason Wilcox and seems to have failed. The most distracted of readers will notice the irony here: a manager who often railed his squad for losing one-on-one duels succumbing in the face of the intense pressure and animal charisma of one of the Premier League’s most feared football executives.

In truth, this whole painful saga seems to paint Jason Wilcox in a whole new light. It may have been tempting, based on his brief stint of experience at Southampton, to regard Jason Wilcox as little more than a functionary in the United exoskeleton: a man whose appointment was due as much to his friendship with his former boss a fellow executive as any verifiable talent. How mistaken everyone was. By masterfully outmanoeuvring the club's celebrated head coach, just as he bested the unfortunate a previous executive earlier, he has proved himself as one of the sport’s true generals: a tactical intellect of which United’s competitors will now be rightly wary.

The Tactical Conflict Regarding System & Ideology

For example, this was the director who having been part of the hierarchy that hired the rigid 3-4-3 advocate Amorim originally, was instrumental in attempting to convince Amorim to abandon his favored formation. Naturally, these entreaties were resisted. But perhaps such directives hold greater authority when delivered from the mouth with the unimpeachable soccer background he possesses, holder of international appearances and a role in a championship team decades past.

Maybe eventually Jason Wilcox may be persuaded to explain his reasoning to the rest of us. Maybe one day questions may arise why Amorim is departing with full compensation, with no compensation reduction clause in place. But Jason Wilcox speaks rarely in public, for excellent reasons. The true intellectuals in football – individuals such as Jason Wilcox – function at a level beyond our own mundane comprehension. Were he to speak, probably we would perceive is a series of high-frequency signals and four-dimensional whirring. Desiring an explanation is not equivalent to being ready to receive.

The Supreme Power In Command

But of course, in training our focus on the sporting director we are obscuring the true genius behind the club's current leadership. Jason Wilcox is, in reality, merely executing the directives of his superior Sir Jim Ratcliffe, who privately has made very clear his preference 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, during a leadership summit soon after his minority ownership, he announced that United’s style of play “will be decided in this room”.

Ultimately, Ratcliffe is a specialist in this technical footballing stuff, leveraging his background in petrochemicals and yachting. Above all he is immensely wealthy, and as we all know, the wealthy are superior: more perceptive, sagacious, strategically brilliant, fundamentally superior. Whom else could one trust to manage a strategic plan of cost-cutting, the construction of a new stadium that looks similar to someone’s leftover knitting, the signing of Benjamin Sesko?

A New Soccer Order: Executives Above Coaches

This represents a shift we are increasingly seeing in top-tier football. Historically, clubs foolishly entrusted big footballing decisions to subordinate staff like managers, scouts – even footballers. Perhaps it was once possible for an up-and-coming, innovative manager with a philosophy and drive to go into an organization and see their vision through to completion. Yet how many businesses have these guys established? How many mass redundancies have they overseen? Far preferable to place the real power where it rightly belongs: the leadership tier, the open-necked shirt brigade, the guys with the jaw-dropping LinkedIn profiles. It is wiser to determine the strategy in the boardroom and hire a coach who can tailor their methods accordingly. If managers were formerly chefs, they have become more like Deliveroo drivers: not creating the product, but still ultimately answerable should it be delivered poorly or fails to meet standards.

Nowadays, a coach's role has become not about defining the vision and more about selling it: the front-facing representative on the front desk, the public face of an organisation they can do little to influence. Enzo Maresca takes a squad of very young players into the Champions League and secures domestic cups, and effectively is dismissed for talking. Wilfried Nancy finds his standing damaged while those individuals who hired him continue to make errors indefinitely.

The Neoliberal Football: Accountability for the Few

And possibly in a small way this is simply corporate governance at work: the rise of a gilded overclass who can never be wrong, whose choices are always untouchable, whose errors can invariably be sacked away without justification. Appoint the 3-4-3 coach only to dismiss them for playing too much that system. Hire the process guy and later discard them for requiring excessive time. And above all show gratitude; for the incremental increases in ticket costs, for the latest player acquisitions, for the fact that the adults – regardless of their expertise – remain in control.