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Turns out the manager endured a loss to lower-league opposition. He weathered an important continental showpiece against a particularly poor Tottenham teams in living memory. He could survive home defeats to domestic rivals, a lowly league position, the tactical inflexibility, laying waste to some of the club’s most promising homegrown talent, a poor winning percentage, labeling the squad the worst in Manchester United history. But there was one adversary against whom Ruben Amorim would not be allowed to engage. If you challenge Jason Wilcox, and you best not miss.

Regrettably, similar to numerous Premiership defender during Blackburn Rovers' title-winning 1994-95 season, Amorim took on Jason Wilcox and appears to have failed. Even the most distracted of readers can see the paradoxical situation: a coach who often railed at his players for failing in individual battles crumbling when confronted by the intense pressure and animal charisma of a the Premier League’s most feared sporting directors.

And frankly, this whole painful saga seems to paint the director in a different perspective. Perhaps it might have been tempting, based on his brief stint in a similar role at Southampton, to view Jason Wilcox as merely a functionary within the club's structure: an individual who owed his position largely to his close relationship with ex-colleague Omar Berrada rather than any demonstrable skill. How mistaken everyone was. In brilliantly outmanoeuvring the club's celebrated head coach, as he outmanoeuvred the unfortunate Dan Ashworth earlier, Jason Wilcox has demonstrated as one of the sport’s true generals: a tactical intellect that United’s competitors are now rightly wary.

A Tactical Conflict Regarding System and Ideology

For example, it was the director who having been part of the leadership that appointed the 3-4-3 fundamentalist Amorim in the first place, played a key role in attempting to convince Amorim to ditch his favored 3-4-3. Naturally, these pleas were resisted. But perhaps these judgements hold greater authority when delivered from the mouth of a man the impeccable soccer background he possesses, a veteran of three England caps and a contributor to a title-winning side from 31 years ago.

Maybe eventually he may be persuaded to explain his thought processes publicly. Maybe one day he might be asked regarding why the coach is departing with full compensation, without any compensation reduction clause in place. The director speaks rarely publicly, and with very good reason. The true intellectuals in football – individuals such as Jason Wilcox – simply operate on a plane beyond our own mundane comprehension. Were he to speak, most likely all we would hear would be high-frequency signals and four-dimensional whirring. Desiring an explanation is not quite equivalent to being ready to receive.

The Ultimate Power Behind the Throne

Naturally, in training our focus on Jason Wilcox we overlook the true genius behind the modern United throne. The director is, after all, simply carrying out the directives of his ultimate line manager Sir Jim Ratcliffe, who in private has emphasized his desire for a four-man defense. According to reports, the owner has also proposed playing Bryan Mbeumo in a wing-back role. The owner is eager for the club to embrace analytics and analytics. Per reports, during a leadership summit soon after his investment, he declared that the team's approach to football “will be decided by this group”.

After all, Sir Jim is a specialist in this technical footballing stuff, leveraging his background in industry and yachting. Most importantly he remains incredibly rich, and as we all know, the rich are the best of us: more insightful, more wise, more tactically astute, fundamentally better. Whom else would you trust to oversee an enlightened programme of austerity, the construction of a new stadium that looks a lot like someone’s leftover knitting, the acquisition of a new striker?

The New Football Order: Directors Over Coaches

This represents a shift that is becoming prevalent at the elite levels football. For decades, teams mistakenly delegated major sporting choices to low-level employees such as coaches, scouts – players themselves. Maybe previously possible for a young, innovative manager with a philosophy and drive to join an organization and implement their plan supported to fruition. Yet how many companies have such individuals set up? How many mass redundancies have they managed? Better by far to place genuine authority where it belongs: the executive class, the casually dressed executives, the individuals with the jaw-dropping professional resumes. Better by far to determine the tactics by the directors and hire a coach who will adapt their offering accordingly. If coaches were formerly chefs, they are now more like Deliveroo drivers: not creating the food, but still ultimately answerable should it be delivered cold or fails of the box.

In the meantime, a coach's role is increasingly not about defining the vision and more about marketing it: the receptionist on the front desk, the visible figurehead of an organisation they can do little to influence. Enzo Maresca takes a squad of very young players into the Champions League and wins two medium-sized trophies, and effectively is dismissed for talking. A manager at Celtic finds his standing damaged while those individuals who hired him continue to make errors indefinitely.

A Neoliberal Football: Responsibility Only for the Coaches

And possibly in a small way this is simply corporate governance in action: the elevation of a privileged elite who can never be wrong, whose decisions are always untouchable, whose errors can always be sacked away without justification. Hire the system coach only to fire him for using excessively that system. Bring in the project manager and then bin him for taking excessive time. And above all show gratitude; for the incremental season ticket price rises, for your new player acquisitions, for the fact that the adults – regardless of their expertise – remain in control.