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Transpired he could survive losing against Grimsby. He weathered a decisive continental showpiece against one of the worst Spurs sides in living memory. He withstood home defeats to domestic rivals, a lowly league position, the tactical inflexibility, squandering the team's best homegrown talent, the 32% win rate, labeling his team the poorest in Manchester United history. But there was one adversary with whom Ruben Amorim was not permitted to engage. If you challenge Jason Wilcox, and you best not miss.

Regrettably, similar to numerous Premiership defender in Blackburn’s title-winning campaign, the coach came at Jason Wilcox and seems to have missed. Even the most casual observer will notice the paradoxical situation: a manager who frequently berated his squad for failing in individual battles succumbing in the face of the white heat and formidable presence of a the Premier League’s most feared sporting directors.

And frankly, this entire painful saga seems to paint the director in a whole new light. It may have been easy, given his nine months in a similar role with the Saints, to view him as little more than a drudge in the United exoskeleton: a man who owed his position largely to his friendship with ex-colleague a fellow executive rather than any verifiable talent. How mistaken everyone was. In brilliantly outsmarting the club's celebrated head coach, just as he bested the hapless a previous executive before him, he has proved himself to be among football's true generals: a strategic mind of which United’s mid-table rivals will now be justifiably concerned.

The Tactical Clash Over Formation & Ideology

For example, it was the director who having been part of the hierarchy that hired the 3-4-3 fundamentalist Amorim in the first place, was instrumental in attempting to convince Amorim to ditch his beloved formation. Naturally, these pleas met a certain resistance. But perhaps these judgements carry more weight when issued from the mouth with the impeccable football pedigree of Jason Wilcox, holder of international appearances and a role in a title-winning side from 31 years ago.

Maybe eventually Jason Wilcox may be persuaded to outline his reasoning publicly. Perhaps at some point he might be asked why Amorim is walking away with full compensation, without any compensation reduction clause in place. But Jason Wilcox speaks rarely in public, for excellent reasons. The real thinkers in football – men like Jason Wilcox – function on a plane beyond our own prosaic understanding. If he ever did speak, probably all we would hear would be ultrasonic blips and four-dimensional whirring. Wanting is not equivalent to being prepared to comprehend it.

An Ultimate Authority Behind the Throne

But of course, by focusing our attention on the sporting director we are obscuring the true genius behind the modern United throne. The director is, in reality, simply carrying out the directives of his line manager the billionaire owner, who in private has emphasized his preference for a back four. According to reports, Ratcliffe has also proposed deploying the forward as a right wing-back. The owner is eager for the club to embrace data science and analytics. Per reports, in an executive meeting soon after his minority ownership, he declared that the team's approach of play “shall be decided in this room”.

After all, Ratcliffe is a specialist in this technical football matters, drawing from his background in petrochemicals and yachting. Most importantly he is incredibly rich, and it is known, the rich are the best of us: more insightful, more wise, strategically brilliant, fundamentally better. Whom else would you trust to manage a strategic plan of austerity, the building of a modern arena that appears similar to an abstract design, the signing of a new striker?

A New Football Order: Executives Above Managers

This represents a shift that is becoming prevalent at the elite levels of the game. For decades, clubs foolishly entrusted major sporting choices to subordinate staff like managers, scouts – even footballers. Perhaps it was once feasible for an up-and-coming, visionary coach with ideas and energy to join an organization and see their vision supported to fruition. Yet how many businesses have these guys set up? What number of mass redundancies have they managed? Far preferable to place the real power where it belongs: the leadership tier, the open-necked shirt brigade, the individuals with the jaw-dropping LinkedIn profiles. Better by far to decide the tactics by the directors and hire a coach who can tailor their methods to suit. If coaches were once chefs, they have become more like delivery personnel: not creating the product, but still ultimately answerable if it arrives poorly or fails to meet standards.

In the meantime, their job has become not about defining the vision and more about marketing it: the front-facing representative on the front desk, the visible figurehead for a club they have minimal power to change. Enzo Maresca takes a squad of literal children into the Champions League and secures domestic cups, and effectively gets sacked for talking. Wilfried Nancy finds his reputation ruined while those individuals who hired him continue to make errors indefinitely.

A Neoliberal Game: Responsibility for the Few

And possibly in a small way this is simply corporate governance at work: the elevation of a gilded elite who are infallible, whose choices remain sacrosanct, whose errors can invariably be sacked away without justification. Appoint the system coach and then fire him for playing excessively 3-4-3. Bring in the project manager and later discard him for taking too long. And above all be grateful; for the incremental season ticket price rises, for the latest player acquisitions, for the reality that the grownups – however well qualified – remain in control.