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Turns out Ruben Amorim could survive a loss to Grimsby. He weathered an important continental showpiece versus a particularly poor Spurs sides in living memory. He withstood losing at home against domestic rivals, a lowly league position, the tactical inflexibility, squandering some of the club’s most promising academy products, a poor winning percentage, labeling his team the poorest the club has ever seen. Yet, there existed one adversary with whom Ruben Amorim was not permitted to tango. You come at the sporting director, and you best not miss.

Regrettably, like many a top-flight right-back during Blackburn Rovers' title-winning 1994-95 season, Amorim took on Jason Wilcox and appears to have missed. Even the most distracted of readers can see the irony here: a coach who often railed his squad for losing individual battles succumbing when confronted by the white heat and formidable presence of one of England's top division's most feared sporting directors.

In truth, this whole bruising episode seems to paint Jason Wilcox in a whole new light. Perhaps it might have been easy, based on his nine months in a similar role at Southampton, to regard him as little more than a drudge in the United exoskeleton: a man whose appointment was due largely to his friendship with his former boss a fellow executive as any verifiable talent. How mistaken everyone was. In brilliantly outsmarting the club's celebrated head coach, just as he bested the hapless a previous executive earlier, Jason Wilcox has proved himself as one of the sport’s strategic masterminds: a strategic mind that the club's mid-table rivals will now be rightly wary.

The Tactical Clash Regarding Formation and Ideology

To illustrate, it was Jason Wilcox who having been part of the leadership that hired the rigid 3-4-3 advocate Amorim originally, was instrumental in trying to persuade Amorim to abandon his beloved formation. Unsurprisingly, these entreaties met a certain resistance. But perhaps such directives carry more weight when delivered from the mouth of a man the unimpeachable soccer background he possesses, holder of three England caps and a role in a title-winning side decades past.

Perhaps in time he may be persuaded to outline his reasoning publicly. Maybe one day he might be asked why Amorim is walking away with a full payout, with no compensation reduction clause activated. The director speaks rarely publicly, for excellent reasons. The true intellectuals in football – individuals such as Jason Wilcox – function on a plane exceeding our prosaic understanding. Were he to speak, most likely all we would hear is a series of high-frequency signals and complex calculations. Wanting is not quite the same as being ready to receive.

The Ultimate Power Behind Command

But of course, by focusing our attention on Jason Wilcox we are obscuring the real power behind the modern United throne. Jason Wilcox is, after all, simply carrying out the commands of his ultimate line manager the billionaire owner, who privately has made very clear 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 United to embrace data science and analytics. Per reports, in an executive meeting early in his minority ownership, he declared that United’s style of play “shall be decided by this group”.

After all, Sir Jim is an expert in these intricate football matters, drawing from his previous experience in industry and sailing. Above all he is incredibly rich, and it is known, the wealthy are superior: more perceptive, more wise, more tactically astute, simply better. Whom else could one trust to oversee a strategic plan of cost-cutting, the construction of a new stadium that appears a lot like someone’s leftover knitting, the acquisition of a new striker?

The New Soccer Hierarchy: Directors Over Coaches

This is a trend we are increasingly seeing at the elite levels of the game. For decades, teams mistakenly delegated big footballing decisions to low-level employees like managers, scouts – even footballers. Maybe previously possible for a young, visionary coach with ideas and drive to go into an organization and implement their plan through to completion. Yet how many companies have these guys set up? How many large-scale layoffs have they managed? Better by far to place genuine authority where it belongs: the leadership tier, the casually dressed executives, the guys with impressive professional resumes. Better by far to determine the strategy in the boardroom and hire a coach who can tailor their offering to suit. If coaches were once chefs, they are now more like Deliveroo drivers: not creating the product, yet ultimately answerable if it arrives cold or leaks out to meet standards.

Nowadays, their job has become less about defining the vision and more about selling it: the front-facing representative of the operation, the public face for a club 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 gets sacked for speaking out. Wilfried Nancy finds his standing damaged whereas those individuals who hired him live to blunder indefinitely.

The Neoliberal Game: Responsibility Only for the Coaches

And possibly in a small way this is simply neoliberalism at work: the elevation of a gilded overclass who are infallible, whose choices remain untouchable, whose mistakes can invariably be resolved by sacking without justification. Appoint the 3-4-3 coach only to dismiss him for using excessively that system. Bring in the process guy and then discard them for requiring excessive time. And most importantly show gratitude; for the incremental increases in ticket costs, for the latest player acquisitions, for the fact that the adults – however well qualified – are in charge.