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Transpired he was able to withstand defeat by lower-league opposition. Survive an important continental showpiece against a particularly poor Tottenham teams in living memory. He could survive losing at home against domestic rivals, a lowly league position, his rigid approach, laying waste to the team's most promising academy products, the 32% win rate, calling his team the poorest in Manchester United history. Yet, there existed one adversary with whom Ruben Amorim would not be allowed to tango. You come at the sporting director, you had better succeed.

Unfortunately, like many a Premiership defender in Blackburn’s championship campaign, the coach came at Jason Wilcox and appears to have failed. The most casual observer will notice the paradoxical situation: a coach who frequently berated at his players for failing in individual battles succumbing in the face of the intense pressure and animal charisma of a the Premier League’s most feared sporting directors.

In truth, this entire bruising episode appears to portray the director in a different perspective. It may have been easy, based on his brief stint in a similar role at Southampton, to regard Jason Wilcox as merely a functionary within the club's structure: a man whose appointment was due largely to his friendship with his former boss a fellow executive as any demonstrable skill. How mistaken we all were. In brilliantly outsmarting United’s feted manager, just as he bested the unfortunate Dan Ashworth earlier, he has demonstrated to be among football's true generals: a strategic mind that United’s mid-table rivals will now be rightly wary.

A Strategic Conflict Regarding Formation & Philosophy

To illustrate, it was the director who being involved in 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 favored 3-4-3. Unsurprisingly, these entreaties faced pushback. However, such directives carry more weight when delivered from the mouth with the unimpeachable football pedigree of Jason Wilcox, a veteran of international appearances and a role in a title-winning side from 31 years ago.

Perhaps in time he might agree to outline his thought processes to the rest of us. Maybe one day questions may arise why Amorim is departing with a full payout, without any penalty clause in place. But Jason Wilcox seldom speaks publicly, and with very good reason. The true intellectuals in football – men like him – function on a plane beyond our own mundane comprehension. Were he to speak, probably all we would hear is a series of high-frequency signals and complex calculations. Desiring an explanation is not equivalent to being prepared to comprehend it.

The Ultimate Authority In Command

Naturally, in training our focus on the sporting director we are obscuring the real power behind the modern United throne. Jason Wilcox is, in reality, merely executing the directives of his ultimate superior the billionaire owner, who in private has emphasized his desire for a four-man defense. According to reports, the owner has also suggested playing Bryan Mbeumo in a wing-back role. Ratcliffe is keen for the club to adopt analytics and metrics. Per reports, in an executive meeting soon after his investment, he announced that the team's approach to football “shall be determined in this room”.

Ultimately, Ratcliffe is an expert in this technical football matters, leveraging his background in industry and sailing. Most importantly he is incredibly rich, and as we all know, the wealthy are the best of us: more insightful, sagacious, more tactically astute, fundamentally superior. Whom else would you trust to manage an enlightened programme of cost-cutting, the construction of a new stadium that looks similar to someone’s leftover knitting, the signing of a new striker?

A New Football Hierarchy: Executives Over Managers

This represents a shift that is becoming prevalent at the elite levels of the game. For decades, clubs foolishly entrusted big footballing decisions to subordinate staff like managers, talent spotters – even footballers. Perhaps it was once possible for an up-and-coming, visionary coach with a philosophy and energy to join an organization and see their vision supported to fruition. Yet how many companies have these guys set up? What number of mass redundancies have they managed? Better by far to place the real power where it rightly belongs: the leadership tier, the open-necked shirt brigade, the guys with the jaw-dropping professional resumes. Better by far to decide the strategy by the directors and appoint someone who will adapt their offering to suit. If managers were once chefs, they are now more like Deliveroo drivers: not responsible for the product, but still ultimately answerable if it arrives poorly or fails to meet standards.

Nowadays, their job is increasingly less about defining the vision and more about marketing it: the receptionist on the front desk, the visible figurehead for a club they can do little to influence. A coach at Chelsea leads a team of literal children into Europe and wins two medium-sized trophies, and essentially is dismissed for talking. Wilfried Nancy sees his standing damaged while those individuals who hired him live to blunder another day.

A Neoliberal Football: Accountability for the Few

And perhaps in a small way this represents corporate governance in action: the rise of a privileged overclass who can never be wrong, whose choices are always untouchable, whose mistakes can invariably be sacked away without justification. Hire the system coach and then dismiss him for playing excessively 3-4-3. Hire the process guy and later bin them for requiring too long. And above all be grateful; for the incremental season ticket price rises, for the latest player acquisitions, for the reality that the adults – however well qualified – are in charge.