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Tbecame clear he endured defeat by lower-league opposition. Survive losing a crucial continental showpiece against a particularly poor Spurs sides 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, calling the squad the poorest the club has ever seen. But there was a single opponent against whom the Portuguese coach was not permitted to dance. You come at the sporting director, you had better succeed.

Unfortunately, similar to numerous Premiership right-back in Blackburn’s title-winning campaign, the coach came at the executive and appears to have missed. The most distracted of readers can see the irony here: a manager who often railed his squad for losing individual battles crumbling when confronted by the white heat and animal charisma of one of the Premier League’s most feared football executives.

And frankly, this whole bruising episode seems to paint the director in a whole new light. It may have been easy, given his nine months in a similar role with the Saints, to regard him as little more than a drudge within the club's structure: an individual whose appointment was due largely to his friendship with his former boss a fellow executive rather than any demonstrable skill. How wrong we all were. By masterfully outsmarting United’s feted manager, as he outmanoeuvred the unfortunate Dan Ashworth before him, Jason Wilcox has proved himself as one of the sport’s strategic masterminds: a strategic mind of which the club's mid-table rivals are now rightly wary.

A Strategic Conflict Regarding System & Ideology

To illustrate, this was Jason Wilcox , after being involved in the hierarchy that appointed the 3-4-3 fundamentalist the coach originally, played a key role in trying to persuade him to abandon his beloved formation. Naturally, these pleas met a certain resistance. However, these judgements carry more weight when delivered by a man of a man the impeccable football pedigree he possesses, a veteran of international appearances and a role in a championship team from 31 years ago.

Maybe eventually Jason Wilcox might agree to explain his reasoning publicly. Maybe one day he might be asked why Amorim is walking away with a full payout, without any penalty clause activated. But Jason Wilcox seldom speaks in public, for excellent reasons. The real thinkers of this sport – individuals such as him – function on a plane beyond our own prosaic understanding. Were he to speak, most likely all we would hear is a series of high-frequency signals and four-dimensional whirring. Desiring an explanation is not quite the same as being ready to comprehend it.

An Ultimate Power Behind Command

Naturally, in training our focus on the sporting director we are obscuring the true genius behind the modern United throne. The director is, after all, merely executing the commands of his ultimate line manager Sir Jim Ratcliffe, who in private has emphasized his desire for a back four. It is reported, the owner has also suggested deploying the forward as a right wing-back. Ratcliffe is keen for the club to adopt data science and analytics. Per reports, during a leadership summit early in his minority ownership, he declared that the team's approach of play “will be decided in this room”.

After all, Sir Jim is a specialist in this technical football matters, leveraging his previous experience in industry and sailing. Above all he is immensely wealthy, and as we all know, the wealthy are the best of us: more insightful, sagacious, more tactically astute, simply superior. Who else would you trust to manage an enlightened programme of cost-cutting, the construction of a modern arena that looks a lot like an abstract design, the signing of Benjamin Sesko?

The New Soccer Order: Executives Over Managers

This is a trend we are increasingly seeing at the elite levels football. Historically, clubs foolishly delegated big footballing decisions to subordinate staff such as coaches, talent spotters – players themselves. Maybe previously feasible for an up-and-coming, visionary coach with ideas and drive to join a club and implement their plan supported to fruition. But how many companies have these guys established? What number of large-scale layoffs have they overseen? Far preferable to place the real power where it belongs: the executive class, the open-necked shirt brigade, the guys with the jaw-dropping professional resumes. Better by far to decide the strategy in the boardroom and hire someone who will adapt their offering to suit. If managers were once chefs, they are now more like delivery personnel: not creating the food, yet finally accountable if it arrives cold or leaks out to meet standards.

In the meantime, their job has become not about crafting the philosophy and more about selling it: the receptionist on the front desk, the public face of an organisation they can do little to influence. A coach at Chelsea leads a team of very young players into Europe and secures two medium-sized trophies, and essentially gets sacked for talking. Wilfried Nancy sees his reputation ruined whereas those individuals who hired him continue to make errors indefinitely.

A Neoliberal Football: Accountability for the Few

And perhaps on some microcosmic level this represents corporate governance at work: the elevation of a gilded elite who are infallible, whose choices are always sacrosanct, whose errors can invariably be sacked away without explanation. Appoint the 3-4-3 coach only to dismiss him for using too much 3-4-3. Hire the project manager and then discard him for taking excessive time. And most importantly be grateful; for your modest season ticket price rises, for the latest summer signings, for the reality that the grownups – regardless of their expertise – remain in control.