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Itranspired the manager endured a loss to lower-league opposition. He weathered an important continental showpiece versus a particularly poor Spurs sides in living memory. He withstood home defeats to domestic rivals, a lowly league position, his rigid approach, squandering some of the club’s best academy products, a poor winning percentage, labeling his team the worst the club has ever seen. Yet, there existed one adversary against whom Ruben Amorim would not be allowed to engage. If you challenge the sporting director, and you best not miss.

Regrettably, similar to numerous Premiership defender during Blackburn Rovers' championship 1994-95 season, Amorim took on Jason Wilcox and seems to have missed. The most casual observer will notice the irony here: a coach who frequently berated at his players for failing in one-on-one duels succumbing when confronted by the intense pressure and animal charisma of one of the Premier League’s most intimidating football executives.

And frankly, this entire bruising episode seems to paint Jason Wilcox in a different perspective. Perhaps it might have been easy, based on his brief stint of experience at Southampton, to regard Jason Wilcox as merely a functionary within the club's structure: a man whose appointment was due as much to his friendship with ex-colleague a fellow executive as any verifiable talent. How mistaken everyone was. In brilliantly outsmarting the club's celebrated manager, as he outmanoeuvred the unfortunate Dan Ashworth earlier, he has proved himself to be among the sport’s strategic masterminds: a tactical intellect that the club's competitors are now justifiably concerned.

A Strategic Conflict Over System and Philosophy

For example, it was the director , after having been part of the leadership that hired the 3-4-3 fundamentalist the coach in the first place, was instrumental in attempting to convince him to ditch his favored formation. Unsurprisingly, these entreaties met a certain resistance. However, such directives hold greater authority when issued by a man with the unimpeachable soccer background he possesses, holder of international appearances and a contributor to a title-winning side decades past.

Perhaps in time he may be persuaded to outline his thought processes to the rest of us. Perhaps at some point he might be asked regarding why the coach is departing with a full payout, with no penalty clause in place. The director speaks rarely in public, for excellent reasons. The real thinkers of this sport – men like him – function at a level exceeding our mundane comprehension. If he ever did speak, most likely all we would hear is a series of ultrasonic blips and four-dimensional whirring. Wanting is not quite the same as being ready to receive.

An Ultimate Authority Behind the Throne

Naturally, in training our focus on Jason Wilcox we are obscuring the true genius behind the club's current leadership. The director is, in reality, simply carrying out the directives of his ultimate line manager Sir Jim Ratcliffe, who privately has emphasized his desire for a four-man defense. It is reported, the owner has also proposed deploying the forward as a right wing-back. The owner is eager for the club to embrace data science and analytics. According to ESPN, in an executive meeting early in his minority ownership, he declared that United’s style to football “shall be determined by this group”.

Ultimately, Sir Jim is an expert in these intricate footballing stuff, drawing from his previous experience in industry and sailing. Most importantly he is immensely wealthy, and as we all know, the wealthy are the best of us: more insightful, sagacious, more tactically astute, fundamentally better. Who else could one trust to manage a strategic plan of austerity, the building of a new stadium that looks a lot like an abstract design, the acquisition of a new striker?

A Modern Soccer Order: Executives Over Managers

This represents a shift that is becoming prevalent at the elite levels football. Historically, teams mistakenly entrusted big footballing decisions to subordinate staff such as coaches, scouts – players themselves. Maybe previously possible for an up-and-coming, visionary coach with a philosophy and energy to go into an organization and implement their plan through to completion. Yet how many businesses have these guys set up? What number of large-scale layoffs have they overseen? Better by far to invest the real power where it belongs: the leadership tier, the open-necked shirt brigade, the guys with impressive LinkedIn profiles. Better by far to decide the strategy in the boardroom and appoint a coach who can tailor their offering to suit. If coaches were formerly chefs, they are now more akin to Deliveroo drivers: not creating the product, yet ultimately answerable if it arrives poorly or leaks out of the box.

In the meantime, a coach's role has become not 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 change. Enzo Maresca takes a squad of very young players into Europe and wins two medium-sized trophies, and effectively is dismissed for speaking out. A manager at Celtic finds his reputation ruined while the people who hired him live to blunder another day.

A Neoliberal Game: Responsibility Only for the Few

And possibly in a small way this represents neoliberalism in action: the elevation of a gilded overclass who can never be wrong, whose choices remain sacrosanct, whose mistakes can invariably be sacked away without justification. Appoint the system coach and then fire him for using too much that system. Bring in the project manager and later bin them for requiring excessive time. And most importantly show gratitude; for the incremental increases in ticket costs, for the latest player acquisitions, for the fact that the adults – regardless of their expertise – are in charge.