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Transpired the manager could survive defeat by Grimsby. Survive a decisive continental showpiece against one of the worst Tottenham teams for many years. He could survive home defeats to domestic rivals, a lowly league position, his rigid approach, laying waste to the team's best homegrown talent, the 32% win rate, labeling his team the worst the club has ever seen. Yet, there existed one adversary against whom the Portuguese coach was not permitted to engage. You come at the sporting director, you had better succeed.

Unfortunately, like many a Premiership defender in Blackburn’s championship 1994-95 season, Amorim came at Jason Wilcox and appears to have missed. The most distracted of readers will notice the irony here: a coach who frequently berated 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.

And frankly, this whole painful saga appears to portray the director in a whole new light. It may have been easy, given his brief stint of experience with the Saints, to view him as merely a functionary within the club's structure: a man whose appointment was due largely to his friendship with ex-colleague a fellow executive as any demonstrable skill. How mistaken everyone was. By masterfully outsmarting United’s feted manager, as he outmanoeuvred the hapless a previous executive earlier, he has proved himself to be among the sport’s strategic masterminds: a tactical intellect of which United’s competitors will now be justifiably concerned.

The Strategic Clash Over Formation & Ideology

For example, it was Jason Wilcox who having been part of the hierarchy that hired the 3-4-3 fundamentalist the coach originally, played a key role in attempting to convince him to ditch his favored 3-4-3. Naturally, these pleas were resisted. But perhaps these judgements hold greater authority when issued from the mouth of a man the unimpeachable soccer background of Jason Wilcox, a veteran of international appearances and a role in a title-winning side decades past.

Maybe eventually he might agree to outline his thought processes to the rest of us. Maybe one day he might be asked why Amorim is departing with full compensation, with no compensation reduction clause in place. The director seldom speaks in public, for excellent reasons. The real thinkers in football – men like him – simply operate on a plane exceeding our mundane comprehension. If he ever did speak, probably we would perceive is a series of high-frequency signals and four-dimensional whirring. Desiring an explanation is not quite equivalent to being ready to comprehend it.

An Ultimate Authority Behind the Throne

Naturally, in training our focus on Jason Wilcox we overlook the real power behind the modern United throne. The director is, after all, merely executing the directives of his line manager Sir Jim Ratcliffe, who in private has emphasized his preference for a four-man defense. It is reported, Ratcliffe has also proposed playing Bryan Mbeumo as a right wing-back. The owner is eager for United to adopt data science and analytics. Per reports, during a leadership summit early in his minority ownership, he declared that United’s style of play “shall be determined by this group”.

Ultimately, Sir Jim is a specialist in these intricate footballing stuff, leveraging his previous experience in industry and sailing. Above all he remains incredibly rich, and it is known, the rich are the best of us: more perceptive, more wise, strategically brilliant, fundamentally superior. Who else would you trust to oversee a strategic plan of austerity, the building of a new stadium that appears a lot like an abstract design, the signing of Benjamin Sesko?

The New Soccer Hierarchy: Executives Over Coaches

This is a trend we are increasingly seeing in top-tier football. Historically, teams mistakenly entrusted big footballing decisions to subordinate staff like managers, talent spotters – players themselves. Perhaps it was once possible for an up-and-coming, visionary coach with ideas and drive to go into a club and implement their plan through to completion. Yet how many businesses have these guys set up? How many large-scale layoffs have they managed? Better by far to invest the real power where it rightly belongs: the leadership tier, the casually dressed executives, the guys with the jaw-dropping professional resumes. Better by far to decide the tactics in the boardroom and appoint a coach who will adapt their methods to suit. If managers were formerly chefs, they are now more like delivery personnel: not really creating the food, yet 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 selling it: the receptionist of the operation, the visible figurehead of an organisation they have minimal power to influence. A coach at Chelsea leads a team of very young players into the Champions League and wins domestic cups, and essentially gets sacked for speaking out. Wilfried Nancy finds his reputation ruined while the people who hired him live to blunder another day.

The Neoliberal Game: Responsibility Only for the Few

And possibly on some microcosmic level this is simply corporate governance at work: the rise of a privileged overclass who can never be wrong, whose choices are always untouchable, whose errors can invariably be resolved by sacking without justification. Hire the system coach only to dismiss him for using excessively that system. Hire the project manager and then discard him for taking excessive time. And most importantly show gratitude; for the incremental increases in ticket costs, for your new player acquisitions, for the reality that the grownups – regardless of their expertise – remain in control.