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Transpired he could survive losing against lower-league opposition. He weathered losing a crucial European final against a particularly poor Spurs sides for many years. He could survive losing at home to domestic rivals, finishing 15th, an unwavering system, laying waste to some of the club’s most promising homegrown talent, the 32% win rate, labeling the squad the poorest the club has ever seen. But there was a single opponent with whom the Portuguese coach was not permitted to engage. You come at the sporting director, and you best not miss.

Unfortunately, similar to numerous Premiership defender during Blackburn Rovers' championship campaign, Amorim took on Jason Wilcox and seems to have missed. The most distracted of readers will notice the paradoxical situation: a coach who frequently berated his squad for failing in individual battles crumbling in the face of the white heat and formidable presence of one of England's top division's most feared football executives.

And frankly, this whole painful saga seems to paint Jason Wilcox in a different perspective. Perhaps it might have been easy, given his brief stint of experience with the Saints, to regard him as little more than a functionary in the United exoskeleton: a man whose appointment was due as much to his friendship with his former boss Omar Berrada rather than any verifiable talent. How mistaken we all were. By masterfully outmanoeuvring United’s feted head coach, as he outmanoeuvred the hapless a previous executive earlier, Jason Wilcox has demonstrated to be among football's strategic masterminds: a strategic mind that United’s competitors are now justifiably concerned.

A Strategic Conflict Over Formation and Ideology

To illustrate, this was the director , after having been part of the hierarchy that appointed the 3-4-3 fundamentalist the coach in the first place, was instrumental in attempting to convince him to abandon his beloved 3-4-3. Naturally, these entreaties met a certain resistance. However, such directives carry more weight when issued from the mouth with the impeccable soccer background he possesses, holder of three England caps and a contributor to a title-winning side decades past.

Perhaps in time he might agree to explain his thought processes to the rest of us. Perhaps at some point questions may arise regarding why the coach is departing with a full payout, with no compensation reduction clause in place. But Jason Wilcox seldom speaks publicly, for excellent reasons. The real thinkers in football – men like Jason Wilcox – function on a plane beyond our own prosaic understanding. Were he to speak, most likely we would perceive would be ultrasonic blips and four-dimensional whirring. Desiring an explanation is not equivalent to being prepared to comprehend it.

An Supreme Authority In Command

But of course, in training our focus on Jason Wilcox we are obscuring the true genius behind the modern United throne. Jason Wilcox is, in reality, merely executing the commands of his ultimate line manager Sir Jim Ratcliffe, who in private has made very clear his preference for a back four. According to reports, Ratcliffe has also proposed deploying the forward in a wing-back role. Ratcliffe is keen for United to embrace analytics and metrics. Per reports, in an executive meeting soon after his minority ownership, he announced that United’s style of play “shall be decided in this room”.

Ultimately, Sir Jim is an expert in these intricate football matters, drawing from his previous experience in industry and yachting. Most importantly he is incredibly rich, and as we all know, the rich are superior: more perceptive, sagacious, more tactically astute, fundamentally superior. Whom else could one trust to oversee an enlightened programme of cost-cutting, the building of a new stadium that appears similar to someone’s leftover knitting, the acquisition of Benjamin Sesko?

A New Soccer Order: Directors Over Coaches

This is a trend we are increasingly seeing at the elite levels football. Historically, clubs foolishly delegated big footballing decisions to subordinate staff like managers, talent spotters – even footballers. Maybe previously possible for a young, innovative manager with a philosophy and energy to go into an organization and see their vision through to completion. But how many businesses have these guys established? What number of mass redundancies have they managed? Better by far to invest the real power where it belongs: the executive class, the open-necked shirt brigade, the guys with the jaw-dropping LinkedIn profiles. It is wiser to determine the tactics in the boardroom and appoint a coach who can tailor their methods to suit. If managers were formerly chefs, they have become more akin to Deliveroo drivers: not really responsible for the product, but still finally accountable if it arrives poorly or leaks out of the box.

In the meantime, a coach's role is increasingly not about defining the vision and more about selling it: the front-facing representative of the operation, the public face for a club they can do little to influence. A coach at Chelsea leads a team of literal children into the Champions League and secures two medium-sized trophies, and essentially is dismissed for talking. A manager at Celtic finds his reputation ruined while those individuals who hired him live to blunder another day.

A Modern Corporate Football: Responsibility Only for the Coaches

And possibly on some microcosmic level this represents neoliberalism in action: the elevation of a privileged overclass who are infallible, whose choices are always sacrosanct, whose mistakes can always be sacked away without explanation. Hire the system coach and then dismiss him for using excessively that system. Hire the project manager and then bin him for requiring excessive time. And most importantly be grateful; for the incremental season ticket price rises, for the latest summer signings, for the reality that the adults – however well qualified – are in charge.