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Transpired the manager could survive defeat by Grimsby. He weathered an important continental showpiece versus a particularly poor Spurs sides for many years. He could survive losing at home to West Ham and Wolves, a lowly league position, an unwavering system, laying waste to some of the club’s most promising homegrown talent, the 32% win rate, calling the squad the worst in Manchester United history. But there was one adversary with whom Ruben Amorim would not be allowed to dance. You come at Jason Wilcox, you had better succeed.

Unfortunately, like many a Premiership right-back during Blackburn Rovers' championship 1994-95 season, Amorim came at the executive and seems to have missed. Even the most casual observer can see the paradoxical situation: a manager who often railed at his players for losing individual battles crumbling when confronted by the intense pressure and formidable presence of one of England's top division's most feared sporting directors.

And frankly, this whole bruising episode appears to portray the director in a whole new light. It may have been tempting, based on his nine months of experience at Southampton, to regard him as little more than a drudge in the United exoskeleton: an individual whose appointment was due as much to his close relationship with ex-colleague a fellow executive rather than any verifiable talent. How mistaken everyone was. By masterfully outmanoeuvring the club's celebrated head coach, as he outmanoeuvred the unfortunate a previous executive before him, Jason Wilcox has proved himself as one of the sport’s strategic masterminds: a tactical intellect that United’s mid-table rivals will now be rightly wary.

The Strategic Clash Regarding System and Ideology

For example, this was the director who being involved in the leadership that hired the rigid 3-4-3 advocate Amorim originally, played a key role in trying to persuade him to abandon his beloved 3-4-3. Unsurprisingly, these pleas were resisted. But perhaps these judgements carry more weight when issued from the mouth of a man the impeccable soccer background he possesses, a veteran of international appearances and a role in a championship team from 31 years ago.

Perhaps in time he may be persuaded to outline his reasoning publicly. Maybe one day questions may arise why Amorim is departing with full compensation, with no compensation reduction clause in place. But Jason Wilcox speaks rarely in public, for excellent reasons. The true intellectuals in football – men like him – function at a level exceeding our mundane comprehension. If he ever did 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 comprehend it.

An Supreme Authority Behind the Throne

But of course, in training our focus on the sporting director we overlook the true genius behind the club's current leadership. The director is, in reality, simply carrying out the commands of his ultimate line manager Sir Jim Ratcliffe, who privately has emphasized his preference for a back four. According to reports, Ratcliffe has also suggested deploying the forward in a wing-back role. The owner is eager for United to embrace analytics and metrics. Per reports, in an executive meeting soon after his minority ownership, he declared that the team's approach of play “will be decided by this group”.

Ultimately, Ratcliffe is a specialist in these intricate footballing stuff, drawing from his background in petrochemicals and yachting. Most importantly he remains incredibly rich, and it is known, the rich are superior: more insightful, sagacious, more tactically astute, fundamentally superior. Whom else would you trust to manage a strategic plan of cost-cutting, the building of a new stadium that looks a lot like someone’s leftover knitting, the acquisition of Benjamin Sesko?

A New Soccer Order: Executives Above Coaches

This is a trend we are increasingly seeing in top-tier of the game. Historically, clubs foolishly entrusted big footballing decisions to subordinate staff such as coaches, talent spotters – players themselves. Maybe previously feasible for a young, innovative manager with ideas and energy to join an organization and implement their plan through to completion. Yet how many businesses have such individuals set up? What number of mass redundancies have they managed? Better by far to place genuine authority where it belongs: the executive class, the open-necked shirt brigade, the guys with impressive LinkedIn profiles. Better by far to determine the strategy in the boardroom and appoint someone who can tailor their offering accordingly. If managers were once chefs, they are now more like Deliveroo drivers: not creating the product, yet ultimately answerable if it arrives cold or leaks out of the box.

Nowadays, their job is increasingly not about defining the vision and more about selling it: the receptionist of the operation, the public face of an organisation they have minimal power to change. A coach at Chelsea takes a squad of very young players into Europe and wins two medium-sized trophies, and effectively gets sacked for talking. A manager at Celtic sees his standing damaged whereas those individuals who hired him live to blunder indefinitely.

The Modern Corporate Football: Responsibility for the Few

And perhaps in a small way this represents neoliberalism in action: the elevation of a privileged overclass who can never be wrong, whose decisions remain sacrosanct, whose errors can always be sacked away without explanation. Hire the 3-4-3 coach only to dismiss him for using too much 3-4-3. Bring in the project manager and then discard them for taking excessive time. And above all show gratitude; for your modest season ticket price rises, for your new summer signings, for the reality that the adults – however well qualified – remain in control.