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Iturns out the manager could survive defeat by lower-league opposition. He weathered losing a crucial continental showpiece versus a particularly poor Tottenham teams in living memory. He could survive losing at home against West Ham and Wolves, a lowly league position, the tactical inflexibility, undermining some of the club’s most promising academy products, a poor winning percentage, calling the squad the poorest in Manchester United history. Yet, there existed a single opponent with whom the Portuguese coach was not permitted to dance. If you challenge Jason Wilcox, and you best not miss.

Regrettably, like many a Premiership right-back in Blackburn’s championship 1994-95 season, the coach 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 failing in individual battles succumbing when confronted by the intense pressure and animal charisma of a the Premier League’s most feared sporting directors.

In truth, this whole painful saga seems to paint Jason Wilcox in a whole new light. Perhaps it might have been easy, based on his nine months of experience with the Saints, to regard him as little more than a drudge in the United exoskeleton: an individual who owed his position largely to his friendship with his former boss Omar Berrada rather than any demonstrable skill. How mistaken we all were. In brilliantly outsmarting the club's celebrated head coach, just as he bested the unfortunate Dan Ashworth earlier, Jason Wilcox has demonstrated to be among the sport’s true generals: a tactical intellect of which United’s mid-table rivals are now rightly wary.

A Strategic Clash Over Formation and Philosophy

To illustrate, it was Jason Wilcox who having been part of the leadership that hired the 3-4-3 fundamentalist the coach originally, played a key role in trying to persuade Amorim to abandon his favored 3-4-3. Naturally, these pleas met a certain resistance. However, these judgements carry more weight when issued from the mouth of a man the unimpeachable football pedigree of Jason Wilcox, holder of international appearances and a role in a title-winning side decades past.

Perhaps in time he 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 walking away with full compensation, with no compensation reduction clause activated. The director speaks rarely publicly, and with very good reason. The real thinkers in football – individuals such as him – function on a plane beyond our own mundane comprehension. If he ever did speak, probably all we would hear would be high-frequency signals and complex calculations. Wanting is not equivalent to being prepared to comprehend it.

The Supreme Power In Command

But of course, by focusing our attention on the sporting director we are obscuring the true genius behind the club's current leadership. The director is, after all, merely executing the commands of his line manager the billionaire owner, who in private has made very clear his desire for a four-man defense. According to reports, the owner has also suggested deploying the forward as a right wing-back. Ratcliffe is keen for the club to adopt data science and analytics. Per reports, in an executive meeting early in his investment, he declared that United’s style to football “shall be determined by this group”.

After all, Ratcliffe is a specialist in these intricate football matters, drawing from his previous experience in petrochemicals and sailing. Above all he remains immensely wealthy, and it is known, the wealthy are the best of us: more perceptive, sagacious, more tactically astute, simply better. Who else could one trust to manage a strategic plan of austerity, the building of a modern arena that appears a lot like an abstract design, the signing of Benjamin Sesko?

A New Soccer Hierarchy: Directors Above Coaches

This represents a shift we are increasingly seeing at the elite levels of the game. For decades, clubs foolishly delegated major sporting choices to low-level employees such as coaches, scouts – players themselves. Perhaps it was once feasible for an up-and-coming, visionary coach with ideas and drive to join a club and see their vision through to completion. Yet how many companies have these guys established? What number of large-scale layoffs have they managed? Far preferable to invest the real power where it belongs: the executive class, the casually dressed executives, the individuals with the jaw-dropping LinkedIn profiles. It is wiser to decide the tactics by the directors and hire someone who will adapt their methods to suit. If coaches were once chefs, they are now more akin to delivery personnel: not really creating the food, but still ultimately answerable if it arrives cold or fails to meet standards.

In the meantime, a coach's role is increasingly less about crafting the philosophy and more about selling it: the front-facing representative of the operation, the public face for a club they have minimal power to change. 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. A manager at Celtic sees his standing damaged whereas those individuals who appointed him live to blunder indefinitely.

The Neoliberal Football: Responsibility Only for the Coaches

And perhaps on some microcosmic level this is simply neoliberalism in action: the elevation of a privileged overclass who are infallible, whose decisions are always sacrosanct, whose mistakes can always be resolved by sacking without justification. Appoint the system coach only to fire them for using too much 3-4-3. Bring in the process guy and then discard them for taking too long. And most importantly be grateful; for the incremental season ticket price rises, for the latest summer signings, for the reality that the grownups – regardless of their expertise – remain in control.