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Turns out the manager was able to withstand defeat by lower-league opposition. Survive a decisive continental showpiece versus a particularly poor Spurs sides for many years. He withstood home defeats against West Ham and Wolves, finishing 15th, the tactical inflexibility, squandering the team's most promising homegrown talent, the 32% win rate, calling the squad the worst the club has ever seen. Yet, there existed a single opponent with whom Ruben Amorim would not be allowed to dance. If you challenge the sporting director, you had better succeed.

Unfortunately, similar to numerous Premiership defender during Blackburn Rovers' title-winning campaign, Amorim took on Jason Wilcox and seems to have failed. The most casual observer will notice the paradoxical situation: a coach who frequently berated his squad for losing individual battles succumbing in the face of the white heat and animal charisma of a England's top division's most intimidating football executives.

And frankly, this whole painful saga appears to portray the director in a whole new light. It may have been easy, based on his brief stint of experience with the Saints, to regard Jason Wilcox as merely a functionary within the club's structure: a man whose appointment was due largely to his close relationship with ex-colleague a fellow executive as any verifiable talent. How mistaken we all were. By masterfully outmanoeuvring United’s feted manager, just as he bested the hapless Dan Ashworth earlier, he has demonstrated as one of football's true generals: a strategic mind that the club's competitors will now be rightly wary.

The Tactical Clash Over Formation & Ideology

To illustrate, it was Jason Wilcox who being involved in the hierarchy that hired the 3-4-3 fundamentalist the coach originally, was instrumental in trying to persuade Amorim to abandon his beloved 3-4-3. Unsurprisingly, these pleas were resisted. But perhaps these judgements hold greater authority when delivered by a man of a man the unimpeachable football pedigree of Jason Wilcox, holder of international appearances and a contributor to a title-winning side from 31 years ago.

Perhaps in time Jason Wilcox may be persuaded to explain his reasoning to the rest of us. Perhaps at some point he might be asked regarding why the coach is departing with a full payout, without any compensation reduction clause activated. The director speaks rarely in public, for excellent reasons. The real thinkers in football – men like him – function on a plane exceeding our prosaic understanding. Were he to speak, most likely all we would hear is a series of ultrasonic blips and four-dimensional whirring. Wanting is not quite the same as being ready to comprehend it.

An Supreme Power Behind Command

Naturally, by focusing our attention on Jason Wilcox we are obscuring the real power behind the modern United throne. Jason Wilcox is, in reality, simply carrying out the commands of his ultimate line manager Sir Jim Ratcliffe, who in private has made very clear his preference for a four-man defense. According to reports, Ratcliffe has also proposed playing Bryan Mbeumo in a wing-back role. Ratcliffe is keen for United to embrace analytics and metrics. Per reports, during a leadership summit soon after his minority ownership, he declared that United’s style of play “will be decided in this room”.

Ultimately, Ratcliffe is a specialist in this technical football matters, leveraging his background in industry and sailing. Most importantly he remains immensely wealthy, and it is known, the rich are the best of us: more insightful, more wise, more tactically astute, simply superior. Who else could one trust to oversee an enlightened programme of austerity, the construction of a modern arena that looks a lot like an abstract design, the signing of Benjamin Sesko?

A Modern Football Order: Directors Above Managers

This is a trend that is becoming prevalent in top-tier of the game. For decades, teams mistakenly entrusted major sporting choices to low-level employees such as coaches, talent spotters – players themselves. Perhaps it was once possible for a young, visionary coach with ideas and drive to go into an organization and see their vision through to completion. Yet how many businesses have such individuals set up? What number of large-scale layoffs have they overseen? Better by far to invest genuine authority where it rightly belongs: the leadership tier, the open-necked shirt brigade, the individuals with the jaw-dropping professional resumes. Better by far to decide the tactics by the directors and appoint a coach who can tailor their offering accordingly. If managers were formerly chefs, they have become more like Deliveroo drivers: not really responsible for the food, but still finally accountable should it be delivered poorly or leaks out to meet standards.

Nowadays, their job is increasingly not about crafting the philosophy and more about selling it: the front-facing representative of the operation, the visible figurehead for a club they can do little to change. A coach at Chelsea takes a squad of very young players into the Champions League and secures domestic cups, and effectively gets sacked for talking. A manager at Celtic sees his reputation ruined whereas the people who hired him continue to make errors indefinitely.

The Neoliberal Football: Responsibility Only for the Coaches

And perhaps on some microcosmic level this represents corporate governance in action: the elevation of a gilded overclass who are infallible, whose choices remain untouchable, whose mistakes can always be resolved by sacking without justification. Hire the system coach and then dismiss him for using excessively that system. Hire the process guy and later discard them for requiring excessive time. And above all show gratitude; for the incremental season ticket price rises, for your new summer signings, for the fact that the adults – regardless of their expertise – remain in control.