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Turns out Ruben Amorim endured losing against Grimsby. He weathered losing a crucial European final versus a particularly poor Tottenham teams in living memory. He could survive home defeats to West Ham and Wolves, a lowly league position, an unwavering system, squandering the team's best homegrown talent, a poor winning percentage, calling the squad the poorest in Manchester United history. Yet, there existed one adversary with whom Ruben Amorim would not be allowed to engage. You come at the sporting director, you had better succeed.

Unfortunately, similar to numerous top-flight defender during Blackburn Rovers' championship 1994-95 season, the coach took on the executive and appears to have failed. Even the most casual observer can see the paradoxical situation: a coach who often railed his squad for losing individual battles crumbling when confronted by the white heat and animal charisma of a England's top division's most intimidating football executives.

And frankly, this whole bruising episode seems to paint Jason Wilcox in a whole new light. Perhaps it might have been tempting, given his nine months of experience at Southampton, to regard Jason Wilcox as little more than a functionary within the club's structure: a man who owed his position largely to his close relationship with ex-colleague Omar Berrada as any verifiable talent. How wrong everyone was. By masterfully outmanoeuvring the club's celebrated head coach, just as he bested the hapless a previous executive before him, Jason Wilcox has demonstrated as one of football's strategic masterminds: a strategic mind of which the club's competitors are now rightly wary.

A Strategic Clash Over Formation & Ideology

For example, this was Jason Wilcox who having been part of the leadership that hired the rigid 3-4-3 advocate Amorim in the first place, played a key role in attempting to convince him to abandon his favored formation. Unsurprisingly, these pleas were resisted. But perhaps these judgements hold greater authority when delivered from the mouth with the impeccable football pedigree he possesses, a veteran of international appearances and a role in a championship team decades past.

Maybe eventually he may be persuaded to outline his reasoning to the rest of us. Maybe one day he might be asked regarding why the coach is walking away with full compensation, with no penalty clause activated. But Jason Wilcox seldom speaks in public, and with very good reason. The real thinkers in football – individuals such as him – simply operate at a level beyond our own prosaic understanding. If he ever did speak, most likely all we would hear would be ultrasonic blips and four-dimensional whirring. Wanting is not equivalent to being prepared to receive.

The Supreme Power In Command

Naturally, in training our focus on Jason Wilcox we overlook the real power behind the modern United throne. Jason Wilcox is, in reality, simply carrying out the directives of his superior the billionaire owner, who privately has made very clear his preference for a four-man defense. It is reported, the owner has also suggested deploying the forward in a wing-back role. Ratcliffe is keen for United to embrace data science and metrics. According to ESPN, in an executive meeting soon after his minority ownership, he announced that the team's approach of play “shall be decided by this group”.

Ultimately, Sir Jim is an expert in these intricate football matters, drawing from his background in petrochemicals and sailing. Most importantly he is immensely wealthy, and as we all know, the rich are the best of us: more insightful, sagacious, strategically brilliant, fundamentally better. Whom else would you trust to manage a strategic plan of austerity, the construction of a modern arena that looks similar to someone’s leftover knitting, the acquisition of a new striker?

A Modern Soccer Order: Directors Over Managers

This represents a shift that is becoming prevalent in top-tier of the game. Historically, teams mistakenly entrusted major sporting choices to low-level employees like managers, talent spotters – even footballers. Perhaps it was once feasible for a young, visionary coach with ideas and energy to go into a club and implement their plan through to completion. But how many businesses have such individuals set up? How many large-scale layoffs have they overseen? Better by far to place genuine authority where it rightly belongs: the executive class, the casually dressed executives, the individuals with the jaw-dropping LinkedIn profiles. It is wiser 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 akin to delivery personnel: not responsible for the food, but still ultimately answerable should it be delivered cold or fails to meet standards.

Nowadays, a coach's role has become not about crafting the philosophy and more about marketing it: the front-facing representative on the front desk, the visible figurehead of an organisation they have minimal power to change. Enzo Maresca leads a team of literal children into Europe and wins two medium-sized trophies, and effectively gets sacked for speaking out. A manager at Celtic finds his reputation ruined whereas those individuals who hired him live to blunder indefinitely.

The Neoliberal Football: Accountability for the Few

And perhaps on some microcosmic level this represents neoliberalism in action: the rise of a gilded elite who are infallible, whose decisions are always sacrosanct, whose errors can invariably be sacked away without explanation. Hire the system coach and then dismiss him for using excessively that system. Bring in the process guy and later bin them for taking excessive time. And above all show gratitude; for the incremental increases in ticket costs, for your new summer signings, for the reality that the grownups – however well qualified – remain in control.