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Itbecame clear Ruben Amorim could survive defeat by lower-league opposition. He weathered an important continental showpiece against a particularly poor Tottenham teams in living memory. He could survive losing at home against West Ham and Wolves, a lowly league position, the tactical inflexibility, squandering the team's most promising homegrown talent, the 32% win rate, labeling his team the worst in Manchester United history. But there was one adversary against whom Ruben Amorim was not permitted to engage. If you challenge the sporting director, you had better succeed.

Unfortunately, similar to numerous Premiership right-back in Blackburn’s title-winning campaign, the coach came at the executive and appears to have missed. The most casual observer can see the paradoxical situation: a manager who frequently berated his squad for losing one-on-one duels succumbing when confronted by the white heat and formidable presence of a the Premier League’s most feared football executives.

And frankly, this whole painful saga seems to paint the director in a different perspective. It may have been tempting, based on his brief stint in a similar role at Southampton, to regard him as little more than a functionary within the club's structure: an individual whose appointment was due as much to his friendship with his former boss a fellow executive as any demonstrable skill. How wrong we all were. By masterfully outmanoeuvring United’s feted manager, just as he bested the unfortunate a previous executive earlier, Jason Wilcox has demonstrated as one of the sport’s true generals: a strategic mind of which the club's mid-table rivals are now rightly wary.

A Strategic Clash Over System and Philosophy

To illustrate, it was the director who having been part of the leadership that hired the rigid 3-4-3 advocate the coach originally, played a key role in attempting to convince him to ditch his beloved formation. Naturally, these pleas met a certain resistance. But perhaps these judgements carry more weight when delivered by a man with the impeccable football pedigree he possesses, a veteran of international appearances and a role in a title-winning side decades past.

Maybe eventually Jason Wilcox might agree to outline his reasoning publicly. Perhaps at some point he might be asked why Amorim is departing with full compensation, without any penalty clause in place. But Jason Wilcox speaks rarely in public, and with very good reason. The true intellectuals in football – individuals such as Jason Wilcox – function on a plane beyond our own prosaic understanding. Were he to speak, most likely all we would hear would be high-frequency signals and complex calculations. Wanting is not quite equivalent to being prepared to receive.

An Ultimate Authority In Command

Naturally, by focusing our attention on the sporting director we overlook the real power behind the club's current leadership. The director is, in reality, merely executing the commands of his ultimate line manager the billionaire owner, who privately has emphasized his desire for a back four. It is reported, the owner has also proposed playing Bryan Mbeumo in a wing-back role. Ratcliffe is keen for United to embrace analytics and metrics. According to ESPN, in an executive meeting early in his minority ownership, he announced that the team's approach of play “shall be decided in this room”.

Ultimately, Ratcliffe is an expert in this technical football matters, drawing from his previous experience in petrochemicals and yachting. Above all he is incredibly rich, and it is known, the wealthy are the best of us: more perceptive, more wise, more tactically astute, fundamentally better. Whom else would you trust to manage an enlightened programme of cost-cutting, the construction of a new stadium that appears similar to an abstract design, the acquisition of a new striker?

A Modern Soccer Order: Executives Above Coaches

This is a trend that is becoming prevalent in top-tier football. For decades, clubs foolishly entrusted major sporting choices to low-level employees such as coaches, scouts – even footballers. Perhaps it was once possible for an up-and-coming, visionary coach with a philosophy and drive to go into a club and see their vision supported to fruition. Yet how many businesses have such individuals established? What number of large-scale layoffs have they overseen? Far preferable to place genuine authority where it rightly belongs: the leadership tier, the open-necked shirt brigade, the guys with impressive professional resumes. It is wiser to decide the strategy in the boardroom and hire a coach who can tailor their methods accordingly. If coaches were formerly chefs, they are now more akin to delivery personnel: not really creating the product, but still finally accountable should it be delivered poorly or leaks out to meet standards.

In the meantime, their job is increasingly not about crafting the philosophy and more about selling it: the receptionist of the operation, the visible figurehead for a club they have minimal power to change. A coach at Chelsea leads a team of literal children into the Champions League and secures domestic cups, and effectively is dismissed for talking. Wilfried Nancy finds his reputation ruined while the people who hired him live to blunder another day.

The Modern Corporate Game: Responsibility Only for the Few

And possibly in a small way this represents neoliberalism in action: the rise of a privileged elite who can never be wrong, whose decisions remain untouchable, whose errors can invariably be resolved by sacking without justification. Appoint the 3-4-3 coach only to fire him for playing excessively that system. Bring in the project manager and then bin him for taking too long. And above all show gratitude; for your modest season ticket price rises, for the latest summer signings, for the fact that the adults – however well qualified – are in charge.