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Transpired Ruben Amorim was able to withstand defeat by lower-league opposition. He weathered an important European final against one of the worst Spurs sides for many years. He could survive home defeats against West Ham and Wolves, finishing 15th, the tactical inflexibility, laying waste to the team's most promising academy products, the 32% win rate, labeling the squad the poorest the club has ever seen. But there was a single opponent with whom the Portuguese coach was not permitted to dance. If you challenge Jason Wilcox, and you best not miss.

Unfortunately, similar to numerous top-flight right-back in Blackburn’s title-winning 1994-95 season, the coach came at the executive and appears to have missed. The most distracted of readers can see the irony here: a manager who often railed at his players for losing individual battles succumbing in the face of the white heat and animal charisma of a England's top division's most feared sporting directors.

And frankly, this whole painful saga appears to portray Jason Wilcox in a whole new light. Perhaps it might have been easy, given his nine months in a similar role at Southampton, to view Jason Wilcox as merely a drudge in the United exoskeleton: a man whose appointment was due largely to his friendship with his former boss Omar Berrada as any demonstrable skill. How mistaken everyone was. By masterfully outmanoeuvring the club's celebrated head coach, just as he bested the hapless Dan Ashworth before him, he has proved himself as one of the sport’s true generals: a tactical intellect of which the club's mid-table rivals will now be justifiably concerned.

A Tactical Conflict Regarding System & Ideology

To illustrate, it was the director who having been part of the hierarchy that hired the rigid 3-4-3 advocate the coach in the first place, was instrumental in trying to persuade him to ditch his beloved 3-4-3. Naturally, these entreaties faced pushback. However, such directives hold greater authority when issued by a man of a man the impeccable football pedigree he possesses, a veteran of three England caps and a contributor to a title-winning side from 31 years ago.

Maybe eventually he might agree to outline his reasoning publicly. Perhaps at some point he might be asked why Amorim is departing with full compensation, with no compensation reduction clause in place. But Jason Wilcox seldom speaks in public, for excellent reasons. The true intellectuals of this sport – men like him – function at a level beyond our own prosaic understanding. Were he to speak, probably all we would hear is a series of high-frequency signals and four-dimensional whirring. Desiring an explanation is not quite equivalent to being ready to receive.

The Supreme Power Behind Command

But of course, in training our focus on Jason Wilcox we are obscuring the real power behind the club's current leadership. The director is, after all, merely executing the commands of his ultimate line manager the billionaire owner, who privately has made very clear his desire for a four-man defense. It is reported, the owner has also suggested playing Bryan Mbeumo as a right wing-back. The owner is eager for the club to embrace analytics and analytics. Per reports, during a leadership summit soon after his minority ownership, he declared that United’s style to football “shall be determined in this room”.

Ultimately, Sir Jim is a specialist in this technical footballing stuff, drawing from his background in petrochemicals and sailing. Above all he is incredibly rich, and as we all know, the wealthy are superior: more insightful, sagacious, more tactically astute, simply better. Who else could one trust to oversee a strategic plan of cost-cutting, the building of a modern arena that looks a lot like someone’s leftover knitting, the signing of Benjamin Sesko?

A New Soccer Order: Executives Above Coaches

This is a trend that is becoming prevalent in top-tier football. Historically, teams mistakenly delegated major sporting choices to low-level employees such as coaches, scouts – even footballers. Perhaps it was once possible for an up-and-coming, innovative manager with a philosophy and drive to go into a club and see their vision through to completion. Yet how many businesses have these guys set up? How many large-scale layoffs have they managed? Better by far to place genuine authority where it rightly belongs: the executive class, the casually dressed executives, the individuals with impressive professional resumes. 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 have become more akin to delivery personnel: not really creating the product, yet ultimately answerable if it arrives cold or leaks out of the box.

Nowadays, a coach's role is increasingly less about crafting the philosophy and more about selling it: the front-facing representative on the front desk, the visible figurehead for a club they have minimal power to influence. Enzo Maresca takes a squad of literal children into the Champions League and wins domestic cups, and essentially gets sacked for speaking out. A manager at Celtic sees his standing damaged whereas the people who hired him live to blunder indefinitely.

The Neoliberal Game: Responsibility for the Coaches

And possibly on some microcosmic level this represents neoliberalism at work: the rise of a gilded elite who can never be wrong, whose choices are always sacrosanct, whose errors can always be sacked away without justification. Hire the 3-4-3 coach only to fire them for using excessively 3-4-3. Bring in the process guy and then bin them for taking too long. And most importantly show gratitude; for your modest increases in ticket costs, for the latest summer signings, for the reality that the adults – however well qualified – remain in control.