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Iturns out he could survive losing against lower-league opposition. Survive losing a crucial continental showpiece versus a particularly poor Spurs sides in living memory. He could survive home defeats against West Ham and Wolves, a lowly league position, the tactical inflexibility, laying waste to the team's most promising homegrown talent, a poor winning percentage, calling the squad the worst the club has ever seen. Yet, there existed a single opponent against whom Ruben Amorim would not be allowed to engage. You come at the sporting director, you had better succeed.

Regrettably, similar to numerous top-flight defender during Blackburn Rovers' championship 1994-95 season, the coach took on the executive and appears to have failed. The most casual observer will notice the paradoxical situation: a coach who often railed at his players for losing individual battles succumbing in the face of the intense pressure and formidable presence of a England's top division's most feared football executives.

And frankly, this entire bruising episode appears to portray Jason Wilcox in a different perspective. Perhaps it might have been easy, given his brief stint in a similar role with the Saints, to view him as little more than a functionary within the club's structure: an individual who owed his position largely to his close relationship with his former boss a fellow executive rather than any demonstrable skill. How mistaken we all were. By masterfully outsmarting the club's celebrated manager, just as he bested the unfortunate a previous executive earlier, Jason Wilcox has proved himself to be among football's true generals: a strategic mind of which United’s competitors will now be rightly wary.

The Strategic Clash Over Formation & Ideology

To illustrate, this was the director who being involved in the hierarchy that appointed the rigid 3-4-3 advocate Amorim in the first place, played a key role in trying to persuade him to ditch his favored formation. Unsurprisingly, these entreaties were resisted. But perhaps these judgements carry more weight when delivered from the mouth of a man the impeccable soccer background of Jason Wilcox, holder of international appearances and a contributor to a championship team from 31 years ago.

Perhaps in time Jason Wilcox may be persuaded to explain his reasoning publicly. Perhaps at some point he might be asked why Amorim is departing with a full payout, with no penalty clause in place. But Jason Wilcox speaks rarely in public, and with very good reason. The true intellectuals of this sport – individuals such as Jason Wilcox – function at a level beyond our own mundane comprehension. If he ever did speak, most likely all we would hear would be ultrasonic blips and four-dimensional whirring. Wanting is not quite the same as being prepared to receive.

An Supreme Authority Behind Command

Naturally, 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 directives of his superior Sir Jim Ratcliffe, who in private has emphasized his preference for a four-man defense. It is reported, Ratcliffe has also proposed deploying the forward as a right wing-back. Ratcliffe is keen for United to adopt data science and metrics. Per reports, during a leadership summit early in his minority ownership, he announced that United’s style to football “will be determined by this group”.

After all, Ratcliffe is a specialist in this technical football matters, leveraging his previous experience in petrochemicals and sailing. Most importantly he is incredibly rich, and it is known, the wealthy are superior: more insightful, sagacious, strategically brilliant, fundamentally superior. Whom else could one trust to manage an enlightened programme of austerity, the construction of a new stadium that appears a lot like someone’s leftover knitting, the acquisition of Benjamin Sesko?

A Modern Football Order: Executives Over Managers

This is a trend we are increasingly seeing at the elite levels of the game. For decades, teams mistakenly delegated major sporting choices to subordinate staff such as coaches, scouts – even footballers. Perhaps it was once possible for an up-and-coming, visionary coach with ideas and drive to go into an organization and implement their plan through to completion. But how many businesses have these guys established? What number of large-scale layoffs have they managed? Better by far to invest genuine authority where it rightly belongs: the executive class, the open-necked shirt brigade, the guys with the jaw-dropping LinkedIn profiles. It is wiser to decide the strategy in the boardroom and appoint a coach who can tailor their methods accordingly. If managers were formerly chefs, they are now more akin to Deliveroo drivers: not really responsible for the food, yet finally accountable should it be delivered poorly or leaks out to meet standards.

Nowadays, a coach's role has become not about crafting the philosophy and more about marketing it: the front-facing representative of the operation, the public face of an organisation they can do little to change. 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 standing damaged whereas the people who hired him continue to make errors indefinitely.

A Neoliberal Game: Responsibility for the Few

And perhaps on some microcosmic level this represents neoliberalism in action: the rise of a privileged elite who are infallible, whose choices are always sacrosanct, whose errors can invariably be resolved by sacking without explanation. Hire the system coach and then fire him for using excessively 3-4-3. Bring in the process guy and then bin him for taking too long. And most importantly show gratitude; for the incremental increases in ticket costs, for the latest player acquisitions, for the fact that the adults – regardless of their expertise – are in charge.