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Iturns out the manager was able to withstand losing against Grimsby. He weathered a decisive continental showpiece versus a particularly poor Tottenham teams in living memory. He withstood home defeats to domestic rivals, finishing 15th, his rigid approach, undermining the team's best homegrown talent, the 32% win rate, calling the squad the poorest the club has ever seen. Yet, there existed one adversary with whom the Portuguese coach would not be allowed to engage. If you challenge Jason Wilcox, you had better succeed.

Unfortunately, like many a top-flight defender during Blackburn Rovers' championship 1994-95 season, Amorim came at the executive and seems to have missed. Even the most casual observer will notice the irony here: a manager who often railed his squad for losing individual battles succumbing when confronted by the intense pressure and animal charisma of one of the Premier League’s most feared sporting directors.

In truth, this entire bruising episode seems to paint Jason Wilcox in a different perspective. It may have been easy, based on his brief stint in a similar role with the Saints, to regard him as little more than a drudge in the United exoskeleton: an individual who owed his position as much to his close relationship with ex-colleague a fellow executive as any verifiable talent. How mistaken we all were. By masterfully outsmarting United’s feted head coach, just as he bested the unfortunate a previous executive earlier, Jason Wilcox has demonstrated as one of football's true generals: a strategic mind that the club's mid-table rivals are now rightly wary.

The Tactical Conflict Over Formation & Philosophy

To illustrate, it was the director who having been part of the hierarchy that appointed the 3-4-3 fundamentalist Amorim originally, played a key role in trying to persuade him to ditch his favored formation. Naturally, these pleas were resisted. But perhaps such directives carry more weight when issued from the mouth with the impeccable soccer background he possesses, a veteran of three England caps and a contributor to a championship team decades past.

Maybe eventually he may be persuaded to explain his thought processes publicly. Maybe one day questions may arise regarding why the coach is departing with a full payout, without any penalty clause activated. But Jason Wilcox seldom speaks in public, for excellent reasons. The real thinkers in football – men like him – simply operate at a level exceeding our mundane comprehension. If he ever did speak, probably we would perceive would be high-frequency signals and four-dimensional whirring. Desiring an explanation is not quite the same as being prepared to receive.

An Ultimate Power Behind the Throne

But of course, by focusing our attention on the sporting director we overlook the real power behind the modern United throne. The director is, after all, simply carrying out the commands of his ultimate superior Sir Jim Ratcliffe, who privately has emphasized his preference for a back four. According to reports, Ratcliffe has also suggested playing Bryan Mbeumo in a wing-back role. The owner is eager for the club to embrace data science and analytics. Per reports, during a leadership summit soon after his minority ownership, he declared that United’s style of play “will be determined in this room”.

Ultimately, Sir Jim is a specialist in this technical football matters, leveraging his previous experience in petrochemicals and sailing. Most importantly he remains immensely wealthy, and it is known, the rich are the best of us: more insightful, sagacious, more tactically astute, simply superior. Who else would you trust to manage an enlightened programme of cost-cutting, the building of a modern arena that appears similar to someone’s leftover knitting, the acquisition of a new striker?

A New Soccer Hierarchy: Directors Over Managers

This is a trend we are increasingly seeing in top-tier football. For decades, clubs foolishly entrusted big footballing decisions to low-level employees like managers, talent spotters – players themselves. Maybe previously feasible for a young, visionary coach with a philosophy and energy to join a club and see their vision supported to fruition. But how many businesses have such individuals set up? How many mass redundancies have they managed? Better by far to invest the real power where it belongs: the executive class, the casually dressed executives, the guys with impressive LinkedIn profiles. Better by far to determine the tactics in the boardroom and hire someone who can tailor their methods to suit. If managers were formerly chefs, they are now more akin to delivery personnel: not really creating the food, but still ultimately answerable if it arrives cold or fails of the box.

Nowadays, a coach's role is increasingly less about crafting the philosophy and more about marketing it: the receptionist of the operation, the public face of an organisation they can do little to change. A coach at Chelsea takes a squad of literal children into the Champions League and secures domestic cups, and effectively gets sacked for talking. Wilfried Nancy finds his standing damaged while the people who appointed him live to blunder indefinitely.

A Neoliberal Game: Responsibility Only for the Few

And possibly in a small way this represents neoliberalism at work: the rise of a privileged overclass who are infallible, whose decisions are always untouchable, whose mistakes can always be resolved by sacking without explanation. Appoint the system coach only to fire him for playing excessively that system. Hire the project manager and later discard them for requiring excessive time. And above all be grateful; for your modest increases in ticket costs, for your new player acquisitions, for the reality that the grownups – however well qualified – are in charge.