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Iturns out he endured a loss to Grimsby. He weathered a decisive European final versus one of the worst Spurs sides in living memory. He withstood losing at home against domestic rivals, a lowly league position, his rigid approach, laying waste to some of the club’s best homegrown talent, a poor winning percentage, labeling his team the worst the club has ever seen. Yet, there existed a single opponent with whom the Portuguese coach was not permitted to engage. You come at the sporting director, you had better succeed.

Regrettably, like many a top-flight right-back in Blackburn’s title-winning campaign, Amorim took on Jason Wilcox and seems to have failed. The most distracted of readers can see the irony here: a manager who often railed at his players for losing one-on-one duels succumbing when confronted by the white heat and formidable presence of one of the Premier League’s most intimidating football executives.

And frankly, this whole painful saga seems to paint Jason Wilcox in a different perspective. Perhaps it might have been easy, based on his nine months of experience at Southampton, to regard Jason Wilcox as merely a functionary in the United exoskeleton: a man who owed his position largely to his close relationship with his former boss a fellow executive as any verifiable talent. How wrong we all were. In brilliantly outmanoeuvring United’s feted head coach, just as he bested the unfortunate a previous executive earlier, he has proved himself to be among football's true generals: a tactical intellect that United’s competitors will now be rightly wary.

A Strategic Conflict Over System and Ideology

For example, it was Jason Wilcox who being involved in the hierarchy that appointed the rigid 3-4-3 advocate Amorim in the first place, was instrumental in attempting to convince him to abandon his favored formation. Unsurprisingly, these pleas faced pushback. But perhaps these judgements carry more weight when delivered by a man of a man the unimpeachable soccer background of Jason Wilcox, a veteran of international appearances and a contributor to a title-winning side decades past.

Maybe eventually he might agree to outline his reasoning publicly. Maybe one day he might be asked why Amorim is departing with full compensation, without any compensation reduction clause activated. The director speaks rarely publicly, and with very good reason. The true intellectuals of this sport – men like Jason Wilcox – simply operate at a level exceeding our prosaic understanding. If he ever did speak, most likely all we would hear would be ultrasonic blips and complex calculations. Wanting is not the same as being ready to comprehend it.

The Ultimate Authority Behind Command

Naturally, by focusing our attention on the sporting director we overlook the real power behind the club's current leadership. The director is, after all, merely executing the commands of his ultimate superior Sir Jim Ratcliffe, who privately has made very clear his desire for a back four. According to reports, the owner has also proposed deploying the forward in a wing-back role. 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 United’s style of play “shall be determined by this group”.

Ultimately, Ratcliffe is an expert in these intricate football matters, leveraging his previous experience in industry and yachting. Above all he remains incredibly rich, and it is known, the rich are the best of us: more insightful, more wise, strategically brilliant, simply superior. Whom else would you trust to oversee a strategic plan of cost-cutting, the building of a new stadium that looks similar to someone’s leftover knitting, the acquisition of Benjamin Sesko?

A Modern Football Hierarchy: Directors Above Managers

This represents a shift that is becoming prevalent at the elite levels of the game. Historically, clubs foolishly entrusted major sporting choices to subordinate staff such as coaches, scouts – players themselves. Perhaps it was once possible for a young, visionary coach with a philosophy and drive to go into an organization and see their vision supported to fruition. But how many companies have such individuals established? How many mass redundancies have they managed? Far preferable to invest the real power where it rightly belongs: the executive class, the open-necked shirt brigade, the individuals with the jaw-dropping professional resumes. It is wiser to decide the strategy by the directors and hire a coach who can tailor their methods accordingly. If coaches were formerly chefs, they have become more akin to Deliveroo drivers: not responsible for the food, yet ultimately answerable should it be delivered poorly or leaks out of the box.

Nowadays, their job is increasingly not about crafting the philosophy and more about marketing it: the receptionist on the front desk, the public face of an organisation they have minimal power to change. A coach at Chelsea leads a team of very young players into Europe and secures domestic cups, and effectively gets sacked for speaking out. A manager at Celtic finds his reputation ruined whereas the people who hired him continue to make errors another day.

The Neoliberal Game: Accountability for the Coaches

And possibly on some microcosmic level this is simply 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 resolved by sacking without justification. Hire the 3-4-3 coach only to dismiss them for using too much that system. Bring in the process guy and then bin him for taking excessive time. And above all show gratitude; for the incremental increases in ticket costs, for your new player acquisitions, for the reality that the grownups – however well qualified – are in charge.