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Turns out he was able to withstand defeat by lower-league opposition. He weathered an important continental showpiece versus a particularly poor Tottenham teams in living memory. He could survive losing at home against domestic rivals, finishing 15th, the tactical inflexibility, undermining the team's most promising academy products, the 32% win rate, labeling his team the poorest in Manchester United history. But there was a single opponent against whom Ruben Amorim was not permitted to engage. If you challenge the sporting director, you had better succeed.

Unfortunately, similar to numerous top-flight defender during Blackburn Rovers' championship 1994-95 season, Amorim took on the executive and appears to have missed. The most distracted of readers can see the paradoxical situation: a coach who often railed his squad for losing individual battles succumbing when confronted by the white heat and formidable presence of one of the Premier League’s most intimidating sporting directors.

In truth, this whole bruising episode seems to paint Jason Wilcox in a whole new light. Perhaps it might have been tempting, based on his nine months in a similar role with the Saints, to view him as little more than a functionary within the club's structure: a man whose appointment was due largely to his friendship with ex-colleague Omar Berrada rather than any demonstrable skill. How wrong we all were. By masterfully outmanoeuvring the club's celebrated head coach, just as he bested the unfortunate Dan Ashworth earlier, Jason Wilcox has proved himself to be among football's true generals: a tactical intellect that the club's mid-table rivals are now rightly wary.

The Strategic Conflict Over System and Philosophy

To illustrate, it was the director who being involved in the leadership that hired the rigid 3-4-3 advocate the coach in the first place, was instrumental in attempting to convince Amorim to ditch his beloved 3-4-3. Unsurprisingly, these pleas met a certain resistance. However, such directives hold greater authority when issued by a man with the impeccable football pedigree of Jason Wilcox, holder of three England caps and a contributor to a championship team decades past.

Perhaps in time Jason Wilcox might agree to explain his thought processes to the rest of us. Perhaps at some point he might be asked regarding why the coach 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 – individuals such as him – function at a level exceeding our mundane comprehension. If he ever did speak, most likely all we would hear is a series of ultrasonic blips and complex calculations. Desiring an explanation is not equivalent to being ready to comprehend it.

The Supreme Power Behind the Throne

Naturally, in training our focus on the sporting director we are obscuring the true genius behind the club's current leadership. Jason Wilcox is, after all, merely executing the commands of his ultimate superior the billionaire owner, who in private has emphasized his desire for a four-man defense. It is reported, the owner has also suggested deploying the forward in a wing-back role. The owner is eager for the club to adopt data science and analytics. Per reports, in an executive meeting soon after his investment, he declared that United’s style of play “will be decided in this room”.

After all, Sir Jim is an expert in this technical footballing stuff, drawing from his background in industry and yachting. Above all he remains immensely wealthy, and as we all know, the rich are superior: more perceptive, sagacious, more tactically astute, simply superior. Who else would you trust to manage an enlightened programme of cost-cutting, the building of a new stadium that appears a lot like an abstract design, the signing of a new striker?

A Modern Football Hierarchy: Executives Above Coaches

This is a trend that is becoming prevalent in top-tier football. For decades, clubs foolishly delegated major sporting choices to low-level employees like managers, scouts – players themselves. Maybe previously feasible for a young, visionary coach with ideas and drive to join a club and implement their plan through to completion. But how many businesses have such individuals established? How many mass redundancies have they managed? Better by far to invest genuine authority where it belongs: the executive class, 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 formerly chefs, they have become more akin to delivery personnel: not creating the food, yet ultimately answerable should it be delivered cold or leaks out of the box.

Nowadays, a coach's role is increasingly less about crafting the philosophy and more about marketing it: the receptionist of the operation, the public face of an organisation they can do little to change. Enzo Maresca leads a team of literal children into Europe and secures domestic cups, and essentially is dismissed for speaking out. Wilfried Nancy sees his reputation ruined whereas the people who appointed him live to blunder another day.

A Neoliberal Game: Responsibility for the Few

And perhaps on some microcosmic level this represents corporate governance at work: the elevation of a gilded overclass who can never be wrong, whose decisions are always untouchable, whose mistakes can always be sacked away without explanation. Hire the system coach only to dismiss him for playing excessively that system. Bring in the project manager and later discard him for taking excessive time. And above all be grateful; for your modest increases in ticket costs, for your new player acquisitions, for the fact that the grownups – regardless of their expertise – are in charge.