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Itbecame clear Ruben Amorim could survive a loss to Grimsby. He weathered a decisive continental showpiece against one of the worst Tottenham teams in living memory. He withstood home defeats to West Ham and Wolves, finishing 15th, an unwavering system, undermining some of the club’s most promising homegrown talent, the 32% win rate, labeling his team the poorest in Manchester United history. But there was a single opponent with whom the Portuguese coach was not permitted to engage. If you challenge Jason Wilcox, you had better succeed.

Unfortunately, similar to numerous top-flight defender during Blackburn Rovers' title-winning campaign, Amorim took on Jason Wilcox and appears to have missed. The most distracted of readers can see the paradoxical situation: a coach who frequently berated at his players for failing in one-on-one duels succumbing in the face of the white heat and animal charisma of one of the Premier League’s most feared football executives.

In truth, this whole bruising episode appears to portray the director in a whole new light. It may have been easy, based on his nine months of experience at Southampton, to regard Jason Wilcox as little more than a drudge in the United exoskeleton: an individual who owed his position largely to his friendship with his former boss a fellow executive as any demonstrable skill. How wrong everyone was. By masterfully outmanoeuvring United’s feted head coach, as he outmanoeuvred the unfortunate a previous executive earlier, Jason Wilcox has demonstrated to be among the sport’s strategic masterminds: a tactical intellect that United’s mid-table rivals are now rightly wary.

A Strategic Conflict Regarding Formation and Philosophy

To illustrate, it was Jason Wilcox who being involved in the hierarchy that hired the 3-4-3 fundamentalist the coach originally, was instrumental in trying to persuade him to ditch his favored formation. Unsurprisingly, these pleas faced pushback. However, these judgements carry more weight when issued by a man with the unimpeachable football pedigree he possesses, holder of three England caps and a contributor to a title-winning side decades past.

Perhaps in time he might agree to outline his thought processes publicly. Perhaps at some point he might be asked regarding why the coach is departing with a full payout, with no penalty clause activated. The director seldom speaks in public, and with very good reason. The real thinkers of this sport – individuals such as Jason Wilcox – function at a level exceeding our mundane comprehension. Were he to speak, most likely all we would hear is a series of ultrasonic blips and four-dimensional whirring. Desiring an explanation is not equivalent to being prepared to comprehend it.

An Ultimate Power In the Throne

Naturally, by focusing our attention on the sporting director we overlook the real power behind the club's current leadership. Jason Wilcox is, after all, simply carrying out the commands of his line manager Sir Jim Ratcliffe, who privately has emphasized his preference for a back four. It is reported, the owner has also suggested deploying the forward as a right wing-back. The owner is eager for the club to adopt analytics and metrics. Per reports, during a leadership summit early in his minority ownership, he announced that United’s style of play “shall be determined by this group”.

After all, Ratcliffe is an expert in this technical football matters, leveraging his background in petrochemicals and yachting. Above all he is immensely wealthy, and it is known, the rich are the best of us: more insightful, sagacious, strategically brilliant, fundamentally better. Who else could one trust to oversee a strategic plan of austerity, the construction of a new stadium that appears similar to an abstract design, the signing of Benjamin Sesko?

A Modern Soccer Hierarchy: Directors Above Managers

This represents a shift that is becoming prevalent at the elite levels of the game. For decades, clubs foolishly entrusted big footballing decisions to low-level employees such as coaches, talent spotters – even footballers. Perhaps it was once possible for a young, innovative manager with a philosophy and drive to go into an organization and see their vision through to completion. Yet how many businesses have these guys set up? What number of mass redundancies have they overseen? Better by far to place genuine authority where it rightly belongs: the executive class, the casually dressed executives, the individuals with the jaw-dropping professional resumes. It is wiser to determine the strategy in the boardroom and hire someone who can tailor their offering accordingly. If managers were once chefs, they have become more akin to Deliveroo drivers: not responsible for the food, but still ultimately answerable should it be delivered cold or fails to meet standards.

In the meantime, their job has become less about defining the vision and more about selling it: the front-facing representative on the front desk, the visible figurehead for a club they can do little to influence. A coach at Chelsea takes a squad of very young players into Europe and secures two medium-sized trophies, and effectively is dismissed for talking. A manager at Celtic finds his reputation ruined while those individuals who hired him continue to make errors another day.

The Neoliberal Football: Responsibility Only for the Coaches

And possibly in a small way this is simply neoliberalism at work: the rise of a privileged elite who can never be wrong, whose choices are always sacrosanct, whose errors can always be sacked away without justification. Hire the system coach and then fire them for using excessively that system. Bring in the project manager and then discard them for taking excessive time. And above all show gratitude; for the incremental increases in ticket costs, for your new summer signings, for the fact that the grownups – however well qualified – remain in control.