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Tbecame clear the manager endured losing against Grimsby. He weathered losing a crucial European final versus a particularly poor Tottenham teams for many years. He could survive losing at home to West Ham and Wolves, a lowly league position, the tactical inflexibility, undermining some of the club’s best academy products, the 32% win rate, calling his team the poorest in Manchester United history. Yet, there existed one adversary against whom the Portuguese coach was not permitted to engage. If you challenge Jason Wilcox, and you best not miss.

Regrettably, like many a Premiership defender during Blackburn Rovers' championship 1994-95 season, Amorim came at Jason Wilcox and appears to have missed. Even the most distracted of readers will notice the paradoxical situation: a coach who often railed his squad for failing in individual battles succumbing in the face of the white heat and formidable presence of one of the Premier League’s most feared football executives.

In truth, this whole painful saga seems to paint Jason Wilcox in a whole new light. Perhaps it might have been easy, given his nine months in a similar role with the Saints, to view him as little more than a functionary within the club's structure: an individual who owed his position as much to his close relationship with his former boss Omar Berrada rather than any verifiable talent. How mistaken everyone was. By masterfully outsmarting United’s feted head coach, just as he bested the hapless a previous executive earlier, Jason Wilcox has demonstrated as one of the sport’s true generals: a strategic mind of which the club's mid-table rivals will now be justifiably concerned.

A Strategic Conflict Over System & Philosophy

For example, it was Jason Wilcox who being involved in the leadership that hired the 3-4-3 fundamentalist Amorim originally, played a key role in attempting to convince Amorim to abandon his beloved 3-4-3. Unsurprisingly, these pleas faced pushback. However, these judgements hold greater authority when issued from the mouth of a man the impeccable soccer background he possesses, a veteran of international appearances and a contributor to a championship team from 31 years ago.

Maybe eventually Jason Wilcox may be persuaded to outline his reasoning to the rest of us. Perhaps at some point questions may arise why Amorim is departing with full compensation, with no penalty clause in place. But Jason Wilcox seldom speaks in public, for excellent reasons. The true intellectuals in football – men like Jason Wilcox – simply operate on a plane beyond our own mundane comprehension. Were he to speak, most likely all we would hear is a series of high-frequency signals and four-dimensional whirring. Desiring an explanation is not quite equivalent to being prepared to comprehend it.

The Supreme Power Behind Command

Naturally, in training our focus on Jason Wilcox we are obscuring the real power behind the modern United throne. The director is, after all, merely executing the directives of his ultimate line manager the billionaire owner, who privately has made very clear his preference for a four-man defense. It is reported, Ratcliffe has also proposed deploying the forward as a right wing-back. Ratcliffe is keen for United to adopt analytics and metrics. According to ESPN, in an executive meeting early in his investment, he declared that United’s style of play “shall be decided by this group”.

After all, Ratcliffe is a specialist in this technical footballing stuff, leveraging his background in petrochemicals and yachting. Above all he is incredibly rich, and as we all know, the rich are superior: more perceptive, more wise, strategically brilliant, fundamentally better. Who else would you trust to oversee a strategic plan of austerity, the building of a modern arena that appears similar to someone’s leftover knitting, the signing of a new striker?

The New Football Order: Executives Over Managers

This is a trend that is becoming prevalent at the elite levels of the game. For decades, teams mistakenly entrusted major sporting choices to low-level employees such as coaches, scouts – even footballers. Perhaps it was once possible for an up-and-coming, innovative manager with a philosophy and energy to join a club and implement their plan supported to fruition. But how many businesses have such individuals established? How many large-scale layoffs have they overseen? Far preferable to invest the real power where it belongs: the executive class, the open-necked shirt brigade, the individuals with the jaw-dropping LinkedIn profiles. It is wiser to decide the tactics by the directors and appoint someone who can tailor their offering to suit. If managers were once chefs, they have become more akin to Deliveroo drivers: not really responsible for the product, yet finally accountable if it arrives cold or leaks out to meet standards.

In the meantime, their job has become less about defining the vision and more about marketing it: the receptionist of the operation, the visible figurehead for a club they have minimal power to influence. A coach at Chelsea leads a team of very young players into Europe and wins two medium-sized trophies, and essentially is dismissed for speaking out. Wilfried Nancy sees his reputation ruined whereas those individuals who hired him live to blunder indefinitely.

The Modern Corporate Football: Responsibility Only for the Coaches

And possibly in a small way this is simply neoliberalism at work: the rise of a privileged elite who are infallible, whose choices are always untouchable, whose mistakes can invariably be sacked away without explanation. Hire the 3-4-3 coach and then fire them for playing too much 3-4-3. Hire the project manager and later bin them for taking too long. And above all be grateful; for your modest season ticket price rises, for the latest summer signings, for the reality that the adults – regardless of their expertise – are in charge.