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Tbecame clear Ruben Amorim could survive defeat by lower-league opposition. He weathered a decisive continental showpiece versus one of the worst Tottenham teams in living memory. He withstood losing at home against domestic rivals, a lowly league position, the tactical inflexibility, squandering the team's most promising academy products, a poor winning percentage, labeling the squad the poorest in Manchester United history. But there was one adversary with whom Ruben Amorim would not be allowed to dance. You come at Jason Wilcox, and you best not miss.

Unfortunately, like many a top-flight defender during Blackburn Rovers' championship campaign, the coach took on Jason Wilcox and seems to have failed. Even the most casual observer can see the paradoxical situation: a coach who frequently berated at his players for losing individual battles crumbling in the face of the intense pressure and formidable presence of a the Premier League’s most intimidating sporting directors.

And frankly, this entire painful saga seems to paint the director in a different perspective. Perhaps it might have been tempting, given his nine months of experience at Southampton, to view him as merely a drudge in the United exoskeleton: an individual whose appointment was due largely to his close relationship with ex-colleague Omar Berrada as any demonstrable skill. How wrong we all were. By masterfully outmanoeuvring the club's celebrated head coach, as he outmanoeuvred the hapless a previous executive before him, Jason Wilcox has demonstrated to be among football's strategic masterminds: a strategic mind that United’s competitors will now be rightly wary.

The Tactical Conflict Regarding Formation and Ideology

For example, this was the director who being involved in the hierarchy that appointed the 3-4-3 fundamentalist Amorim in the first place, was instrumental in attempting to convince him to abandon his favored formation. Naturally, these entreaties faced pushback. However, such directives hold greater authority when issued by a man with the impeccable football pedigree he possesses, a veteran of international appearances and a contributor to a title-winning side decades past.

Maybe eventually he may be persuaded to outline his reasoning to the rest of us. Maybe one day questions may arise why Amorim is walking away with full compensation, without any penalty clause activated. The director seldom speaks in public, and with very good reason. The true intellectuals in football – men like Jason Wilcox – simply operate on a plane beyond our own prosaic understanding. If he ever did speak, probably we would perceive is a series of ultrasonic blips and complex calculations. Wanting is not quite the same as being prepared to receive.

The Ultimate Power Behind the Throne

Naturally, in training our focus on Jason Wilcox we overlook the true genius behind the club's current leadership. Jason Wilcox is, after all, merely executing the commands of his superior the billionaire owner, who privately has emphasized his desire for a back four. According to reports, the owner has also proposed deploying the forward as a right wing-back. The owner is eager for the club to adopt analytics and metrics. According to ESPN, during a leadership summit soon after his minority ownership, he announced that the team's approach to football “shall be decided in this room”.

Ultimately, Sir Jim is an expert in this technical football matters, leveraging his background in petrochemicals and yachting. Above all he is incredibly rich, and as we all know, the rich are superior: more insightful, more wise, more tactically astute, simply superior. Whom else would you trust to manage an enlightened programme of austerity, the building of a modern arena that appears similar to an abstract design, the acquisition of a new striker?

A Modern Football Hierarchy: Executives Over Managers

This is a trend we are increasingly seeing at the elite levels of the game. For decades, clubs foolishly entrusted big footballing decisions to subordinate staff such as coaches, scouts – even footballers. Perhaps it was once feasible for a young, innovative manager with ideas and energy to go into an organization and see their vision through to completion. But how many companies have such individuals established? What number of large-scale layoffs have they overseen? Better by far to invest the real power where it rightly belongs: the executive class, the casually dressed executives, the guys with impressive professional resumes. Better by far to determine the tactics by the directors and appoint a coach who will adapt their offering accordingly. If managers were once chefs, they have become more akin to Deliveroo drivers: not really responsible for the product, yet ultimately answerable should it be delivered cold or fails of the box.

In the meantime, their job has become less about defining the vision and more about selling it: the receptionist of the operation, the visible figurehead of an organisation they can do little 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 talking. A manager at Celtic sees his standing damaged whereas the people who hired him live to blunder another day.

A Neoliberal Football: Responsibility for the Few

And perhaps on some microcosmic level this represents neoliberalism at work: the elevation of a gilded overclass who are infallible, whose choices remain untouchable, whose mistakes can invariably be sacked away without justification. Hire the system coach and then dismiss them for playing excessively 3-4-3. Hire the project manager and then bin them for requiring excessive time. And most importantly be grateful; for the incremental season ticket price rises, for your new player acquisitions, for the reality that the grownups – regardless of their expertise – are in charge.