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Turns out he could survive defeat by lower-league opposition. Survive a decisive European final versus a particularly poor Spurs sides for many years. He could survive home defeats against domestic rivals, a lowly league position, his rigid approach, undermining the team's most promising academy products, the 32% win rate, labeling the squad the poorest in Manchester United history. But there was one adversary against whom the Portuguese coach would not be allowed to tango. You come at the sporting director, you had better succeed.

Unfortunately, like many a top-flight right-back in Blackburn’s championship campaign, the coach took on the executive and appears to have missed. Even the most casual observer will notice the irony here: a coach who frequently berated at his players for failing in individual battles crumbling when confronted by the intense pressure and animal charisma of a the Premier League’s most intimidating sporting directors.

In truth, this entire bruising episode appears to portray Jason Wilcox in a whole new light. Perhaps it might have been tempting, given his nine months in a similar role at Southampton, to view him as merely a functionary in the United exoskeleton: an individual whose appointment was due largely to his close relationship with ex-colleague a fellow executive as any verifiable talent. How wrong we all were. By masterfully outmanoeuvring United’s feted head coach, as he outmanoeuvred the unfortunate a previous executive before him, Jason Wilcox has proved himself to be among the sport’s true generals: a strategic mind that the club's competitors will now be justifiably concerned.

The Strategic Conflict Regarding Formation & Ideology

For example, it was the director who having been part of the hierarchy that hired the 3-4-3 fundamentalist the coach in the first place, played a key role in trying to persuade him to ditch his favored formation. Naturally, these pleas met a certain resistance. However, these judgements carry more weight when issued from the mouth of a man the unimpeachable soccer background he possesses, a veteran of three England caps and a contributor to a championship team decades past.

Perhaps in time Jason Wilcox might agree to outline his reasoning to the rest of us. Maybe one day he might be asked why Amorim is walking away with full compensation, with no compensation reduction clause activated. The director speaks rarely in public, and with very good reason. The true intellectuals of this sport – individuals such as Jason Wilcox – function on a plane exceeding our prosaic understanding. Were he to speak, probably all we would hear would be high-frequency signals and complex calculations. Desiring an explanation is not quite equivalent to being ready to receive.

An Ultimate Power Behind the Throne

But of course, by focusing our attention on Jason Wilcox we are obscuring the real power behind the club's current leadership. The director is, in reality, merely executing the directives of his ultimate line manager the billionaire owner, who privately has emphasized his preference for a back four. It is reported, the owner has also proposed playing Bryan Mbeumo in a wing-back role. Ratcliffe is keen for the club to adopt data science and analytics. According to ESPN, in an executive meeting soon after his minority ownership, he declared that the team's approach to football “shall be determined in this room”.

After all, Ratcliffe is a specialist in this technical football matters, drawing from his background in petrochemicals and yachting. Most importantly he is incredibly rich, and it is known, the rich are superior: more perceptive, sagacious, strategically brilliant, simply better. Who else could one trust to oversee a strategic plan of austerity, the building of a new stadium that looks similar to an abstract design, the acquisition of a new striker?

A Modern Soccer Order: Directors Above Managers

This represents a shift we are increasingly seeing at the elite levels of the game. For decades, clubs foolishly delegated big footballing decisions to low-level employees such as coaches, scouts – even footballers. Maybe previously possible for an up-and-coming, visionary coach with ideas and energy to join an organization and see their vision supported to fruition. Yet how many companies have such individuals set up? How many large-scale layoffs have they managed? Better by far to invest the real power where it belongs: the executive class, the open-necked shirt brigade, the individuals with impressive professional resumes. Better by far to determine the tactics in the boardroom and appoint someone who can tailor their methods accordingly. If managers were once chefs, they have become more like delivery personnel: not responsible for the food, but still finally accountable if it arrives cold or leaks out to meet standards.

Nowadays, a coach's role has become less about crafting the philosophy and more about selling it: the receptionist on the front desk, the visible figurehead of an organisation they have minimal power to change. A coach at Chelsea leads a team of very young players into the Champions League and secures domestic cups, and essentially gets sacked for talking. A manager at Celtic finds his reputation ruined while those individuals who hired him continue to make errors another day.

A Modern Corporate Football: Accountability Only for the Coaches

And possibly in a small way this is simply neoliberalism in action: the elevation of a privileged overclass who can never be wrong, whose decisions are always sacrosanct, whose errors can invariably be resolved by sacking without justification. Hire the 3-4-3 coach only to dismiss him for using excessively that system. Hire the project manager and later bin him for requiring excessive time. And most importantly be grateful; for the incremental increases in ticket costs, for your new summer signings, for the reality that the grownups – regardless of their expertise – are in charge.