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Tbecame clear Ruben Amorim could survive losing against Grimsby. He weathered an important European final versus a particularly poor Spurs sides for many years. He withstood home defeats to West Ham and Wolves, a lowly league position, the tactical inflexibility, squandering the team's best homegrown talent, the 32% win rate, calling the squad the poorest in Manchester United history. But there was one adversary against whom the Portuguese coach was not permitted to engage. If you challenge Jason Wilcox, and you best not miss.

Unfortunately, like many a top-flight defender in Blackburn’s championship campaign, Amorim came at Jason Wilcox and seems to have missed. The most distracted of readers can see the irony here: a manager who frequently berated at his players for failing in individual battles succumbing in the face of the intense pressure and formidable presence of a the Premier League’s most feared sporting directors.

And frankly, this whole bruising episode seems to paint the director in a whole new light. Perhaps it might have been easy, given his brief stint of experience with the Saints, to regard Jason Wilcox as merely a functionary in the United exoskeleton: a man whose appointment was due largely to his close relationship with his former boss Omar Berrada as any demonstrable skill. How wrong everyone was. In brilliantly outsmarting the club's celebrated manager, just as he bested the unfortunate Dan Ashworth earlier, he has proved himself to be among football's strategic masterminds: a strategic mind of which United’s competitors are now justifiably concerned.

A Strategic Conflict Over Formation and Ideology

To illustrate, it was the director , after being involved in the leadership that appointed the rigid 3-4-3 advocate Amorim in the first place, played a key role in trying to persuade Amorim to ditch his favored formation. Unsurprisingly, these pleas faced pushback. But perhaps such directives carry more weight when issued from the mouth with the unimpeachable soccer background of Jason Wilcox, holder of international appearances and a contributor to a title-winning side decades past.

Maybe eventually Jason Wilcox might agree to explain his reasoning to the rest of us. Perhaps at some point questions may arise regarding why the coach is walking away with full compensation, with no compensation reduction clause in place. The director speaks rarely in public, for excellent reasons. The real thinkers in football – individuals such as Jason Wilcox – function on a plane exceeding our mundane comprehension. Were he to speak, most likely all we would hear would be ultrasonic blips and complex calculations. Wanting is not quite the same as being prepared to comprehend it.

An Ultimate Authority Behind Command

But of course, in training our focus on the sporting director we overlook the true genius behind the modern United throne. Jason Wilcox is, after all, simply carrying out the commands of his line manager Sir Jim Ratcliffe, who privately has emphasized his desire for a four-man defense. It is reported, Ratcliffe has also proposed playing Bryan Mbeumo as a right wing-back. The owner is eager for the club to adopt data science and analytics. Per reports, during a leadership summit soon after his minority ownership, he announced that United’s style of play “shall be decided by this group”.

Ultimately, Sir Jim is a specialist in this technical footballing stuff, leveraging his previous experience in industry and sailing. Above all he is incredibly rich, and it is known, the rich are superior: more insightful, sagacious, strategically brilliant, simply better. Whom else could one trust to manage a strategic plan of cost-cutting, the construction of a new stadium that looks similar to someone’s leftover knitting, the signing of Benjamin Sesko?

A New Football Hierarchy: Directors Above Managers

This represents a shift that is becoming prevalent at the elite levels of the game. Historically, clubs foolishly entrusted major sporting choices to subordinate staff like managers, scouts – even footballers. Perhaps it was once possible for an up-and-coming, visionary coach with ideas and drive to join a club and see their vision supported to fruition. But how many companies have these guys set up? How many mass redundancies have they overseen? Far preferable to place genuine authority where it rightly belongs: the leadership tier, the open-necked shirt brigade, the individuals with impressive LinkedIn profiles. It is wiser to determine the strategy by the directors and hire a coach who can tailor their offering to suit. If coaches were once chefs, they have become more akin to delivery personnel: not creating the product, yet ultimately answerable should it be delivered poorly or fails of the box.

In the meantime, their job has become less about defining the vision and more about selling it: the receptionist of the operation, the visible figurehead for a club they have minimal power to influence. Enzo Maresca leads a team of literal children into the Champions League and secures two medium-sized trophies, and essentially gets sacked for speaking out. A manager at Celtic finds his standing damaged while those individuals who hired him continue to make errors indefinitely.

The Neoliberal Game: Responsibility Only for the Coaches

And perhaps in a small way this represents corporate governance in action: the elevation of a privileged elite who are infallible, whose decisions are always untouchable, whose errors can invariably be resolved by sacking without justification. Appoint the 3-4-3 coach only to dismiss them for using excessively 3-4-3. Hire the process guy and then discard him for requiring excessive time. And above all be grateful; for the incremental increases in ticket costs, for your new player acquisitions, for the reality that the adults – regardless of their expertise – are in charge.