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Transpired the manager could survive a loss to lower-league opposition. Survive an important continental showpiece versus a particularly poor Tottenham teams for many years. He withstood losing at home to West Ham and Wolves, finishing 15th, the tactical inflexibility, squandering the team's best academy products, a poor winning percentage, calling his team the worst the club has ever seen. But there was a single opponent with whom the Portuguese coach was not permitted to engage. You come at the sporting director, you had better succeed.

Unfortunately, similar to numerous top-flight defender in Blackburn’s title-winning 1994-95 season, Amorim took on Jason Wilcox and seems to have missed. Even the most casual observer can see the irony here: a coach who often railed at his players for losing one-on-one duels crumbling in the face of the white heat and animal charisma of one of England's top division's most feared football executives.

And frankly, this whole painful saga seems to paint the director in a whole new light. Perhaps it might have been easy, based on his nine months of experience at Southampton, to view him as merely a drudge within the club's structure: an individual whose appointment was due as much to his close relationship with his former boss a fellow executive rather than any verifiable talent. How mistaken we all were. By masterfully outmanoeuvring United’s feted manager, as he outmanoeuvred the unfortunate Dan Ashworth earlier, he has demonstrated to be among football's true generals: a strategic mind of which United’s competitors will now be justifiably concerned.

The Tactical Conflict Regarding Formation and Ideology

For example, this was Jason Wilcox who being involved in the leadership that appointed the 3-4-3 fundamentalist Amorim in the first place, was instrumental in trying to persuade him to ditch his beloved 3-4-3. Unsurprisingly, these entreaties faced pushback. However, these judgements carry more weight when delivered by a man with the unimpeachable soccer background he possesses, a veteran of international appearances and a role in a title-winning side decades past.

Perhaps in time Jason Wilcox might agree to outline his thought processes publicly. Perhaps at some point he might be asked regarding why the coach is walking away with full compensation, without any compensation reduction clause in place. The director seldom speaks in public, for excellent reasons. The true intellectuals in football – men like Jason Wilcox – simply operate at a level beyond our own mundane comprehension. If he ever did speak, most likely we would perceive would be ultrasonic blips and complex calculations. Wanting is not equivalent to being ready to receive.

An Ultimate Authority Behind Command

But of course, by focusing our attention on the sporting director we are obscuring the true genius behind the club's current leadership. Jason Wilcox is, after all, merely executing the commands of his ultimate superior the billionaire owner, who privately has made very clear his preference for a four-man defense. According to reports, the owner has also proposed playing Bryan Mbeumo in a wing-back role. The owner is eager for United to embrace data science and metrics. Per reports, during a leadership summit soon after his investment, he announced that the team's approach to football “will be determined by this group”.

Ultimately, Ratcliffe is an expert in this technical football matters, leveraging his background in petrochemicals and sailing. Most importantly he remains incredibly rich, and it is known, the wealthy are superior: more insightful, sagacious, strategically brilliant, simply better. Whom else would you trust to oversee a strategic plan of cost-cutting, the construction of a new stadium that looks a lot like an abstract design, the signing of Benjamin Sesko?

A New Football Order: Directors Over Coaches

This represents a shift we are increasingly seeing at the elite levels football. Historically, teams mistakenly delegated big footballing decisions to low-level employees like managers, talent spotters – players themselves. Maybe previously feasible for a young, visionary coach with a philosophy and energy to join a club and see their vision supported to fruition. But how many companies have these guys established? How many large-scale layoffs have they managed? Far preferable to place the real power where it rightly belongs: the executive class, the casually dressed executives, the guys with the jaw-dropping LinkedIn profiles. Better by far to decide the strategy in the boardroom and appoint a coach who can tailor their methods to suit. If coaches were once chefs, they have become more akin to delivery personnel: not really responsible for the food, but still finally accountable should it be delivered cold or fails to meet standards.

Nowadays, a coach's role has become not about crafting the philosophy and more about selling it: the front-facing representative on the front desk, the public face of an organisation they can do little to change. Enzo Maresca takes a squad of literal children into the Champions League and wins domestic cups, and essentially is dismissed for talking. A manager at Celtic finds his standing damaged while those individuals who appointed him continue to make errors another day.

The Modern Corporate Football: Responsibility for the Coaches

And possibly in a small way this represents neoliberalism in action: the elevation of a gilded overclass who are infallible, whose decisions remain untouchable, whose mistakes can invariably be sacked away without justification. Hire the system coach only to fire them for using too much that system. Hire the project manager and later discard them for taking too long. And above all show gratitude; for your modest increases in ticket costs, for the latest player acquisitions, for the reality that the adults – however well qualified – are in charge.