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Tbecame clear the manager was able to withstand a loss to Grimsby. He weathered an important continental showpiece versus a particularly poor Tottenham teams for many years. He withstood home defeats to West Ham and Wolves, finishing 15th, the tactical inflexibility, undermining some of the club’s best homegrown talent, the 32% win rate, calling the squad the poorest in Manchester United history. But there was one adversary against whom Ruben Amorim was not permitted to dance. If you challenge the sporting director, you had better succeed.

Unfortunately, like many a top-flight right-back during Blackburn Rovers' title-winning campaign, the coach came at Jason Wilcox and appears to have failed. The most distracted of readers can see the irony here: a manager who often railed at his players for losing individual battles crumbling when confronted by the white heat and formidable presence of a the Premier League’s most intimidating football executives.

In truth, this entire painful saga appears to portray Jason Wilcox in a whole new light. It may have been tempting, given his brief stint in a similar role at Southampton, to regard him as little more than a drudge within the club's structure: an individual whose appointment was due largely to his close relationship with ex-colleague a fellow executive rather than any demonstrable skill. How mistaken everyone was. By masterfully outsmarting the club's celebrated head coach, as he outmanoeuvred the unfortunate Dan Ashworth earlier, he has demonstrated to be among football's strategic masterminds: a tactical intellect that United’s competitors are now rightly wary.

The Tactical Conflict Over System & Ideology

For example, it was Jason Wilcox , after being involved in the leadership that appointed the rigid 3-4-3 advocate the coach originally, played a key role in trying to persuade him to ditch his favored formation. Unsurprisingly, these pleas faced pushback. But perhaps such directives carry more weight when issued from the mouth of a man the impeccable football pedigree of Jason Wilcox, a veteran of international appearances and a role in a championship team decades past.

Maybe eventually Jason Wilcox might agree to outline his thought processes publicly. Perhaps at some point questions may arise regarding why the coach is walking away with a full payout, with no compensation reduction clause in place. But Jason Wilcox speaks rarely publicly, and with very good reason. The real thinkers of this sport – men like Jason Wilcox – function on a plane exceeding our mundane comprehension. If he ever did speak, probably we would perceive is a series of high-frequency signals and four-dimensional whirring. Desiring an explanation is not equivalent to being prepared to receive.

An Ultimate Power In Command

But of course, by focusing our attention on the sporting director we are obscuring the real power behind the modern United throne. Jason Wilcox is, after all, merely executing the directives of his ultimate superior Sir Jim Ratcliffe, who in private has emphasized his desire for a back four. According to reports, Ratcliffe has also suggested deploying the forward in a wing-back role. The owner is eager for the club to embrace data science and analytics. According to ESPN, during a leadership summit soon after his minority ownership, he announced that the team's approach to football “will be determined in this room”.

After all, Ratcliffe is a specialist in these intricate footballing stuff, drawing from his background in industry and sailing. Above all he is incredibly rich, and as we all know, the wealthy are superior: more perceptive, more wise, more tactically astute, simply better. Whom else would you trust to oversee a strategic plan of cost-cutting, the building of a new stadium that looks similar to an abstract design, the acquisition of a new striker?

A Modern Soccer Hierarchy: Executives Over Coaches

This is a trend that is becoming prevalent at the elite levels football. For decades, teams mistakenly delegated major sporting choices to subordinate staff like managers, scouts – even footballers. Perhaps it was once feasible for an up-and-coming, visionary coach with ideas and drive to go into an organization and implement their plan supported to fruition. But how many businesses have such individuals set up? How many mass redundancies have they managed? Far preferable to invest genuine authority where it rightly belongs: the leadership tier, the open-necked shirt brigade, the guys with impressive LinkedIn profiles. Better by far to determine the tactics by the directors and appoint someone who can tailor their methods to suit. If managers were formerly chefs, they have become more like Deliveroo drivers: not really responsible for the product, yet finally accountable should it be delivered poorly or fails to meet standards.

In the meantime, a coach's role is increasingly less about crafting the philosophy and more about selling it: the receptionist of the operation, the visible figurehead of an organisation they have minimal power to change. A coach at Chelsea leads a team of literal children into Europe and secures domestic cups, and effectively gets sacked for speaking out. Wilfried Nancy sees his reputation ruined whereas the people who hired him live to blunder indefinitely.

A Neoliberal Football: Responsibility for the Coaches

And possibly on some microcosmic level this represents neoliberalism at work: the rise of a privileged elite who can never be wrong, whose decisions remain sacrosanct, whose mistakes can invariably be resolved by sacking without explanation. Appoint the 3-4-3 coach only to fire them for playing too much that system. Hire the project manager and then bin him for requiring excessive time. And above all be grateful; for the incremental season ticket price rises, for your new player acquisitions, for the reality that the adults – however well qualified – remain in control.