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Transpired he was able to withstand defeat by lower-league opposition. He weathered losing a crucial continental showpiece against one of the worst Tottenham teams for many years. He withstood losing at home against domestic rivals, finishing 15th, his rigid approach, squandering some of the club’s best homegrown talent, a poor winning percentage, calling his team the worst in Manchester United history. Yet, there existed one adversary with whom Ruben Amorim would not be allowed to dance. If you challenge Jason Wilcox, and you best not miss.

Unfortunately, similar to numerous Premiership right-back in Blackburn’s title-winning campaign, the coach came at Jason Wilcox and appears to have failed. Even the most casual observer can see the paradoxical situation: a manager who frequently berated his squad for failing in individual battles succumbing in the face of the white heat and animal charisma of a the Premier League’s most intimidating football executives.

And frankly, this entire painful saga seems to paint Jason Wilcox in a whole new light. It may have been easy, based on his nine months of experience with the Saints, to regard him as merely a functionary in the United exoskeleton: an individual who owed his position as much to his friendship with his former boss a fellow executive as any demonstrable skill. How mistaken everyone was. By masterfully outmanoeuvring United’s feted head coach, as he outmanoeuvred the unfortunate Dan Ashworth before him, he has proved himself as one of football's true generals: a strategic mind that the club's competitors will now be rightly wary.

A Tactical Conflict Over System & Philosophy

To illustrate, it was the director who being involved in the hierarchy that hired the rigid 3-4-3 advocate Amorim originally, played a key role in attempting to convince Amorim to abandon his beloved 3-4-3. Naturally, these pleas met a certain resistance. But perhaps such directives carry more weight when issued by a man with the impeccable football pedigree of Jason Wilcox, holder of international appearances and a role in a championship team decades past.

Maybe eventually Jason Wilcox may be persuaded to explain his reasoning publicly. Perhaps at some point he might be asked regarding why the coach is walking away with a full payout, with no compensation reduction clause activated. The director speaks rarely publicly, and with very good reason. The true intellectuals in football – individuals such as Jason Wilcox – function on a plane exceeding our mundane comprehension. If he ever did speak, probably we would perceive would be ultrasonic blips and complex calculations. Desiring an explanation is not quite equivalent to being ready to receive.

An Supreme Authority Behind the Throne

But of course, in training our focus on the sporting director we are obscuring the true genius behind the modern United throne. Jason Wilcox is, after all, merely executing the commands of his ultimate superior the billionaire owner, who privately has made very clear his desire for a back four. According to reports, the owner has also proposed playing Bryan Mbeumo in a wing-back role. Ratcliffe is keen for United to embrace data science and analytics. According to ESPN, in an executive meeting soon after his investment, he announced that United’s style of play “shall be determined by this group”.

After all, Sir Jim is an expert in this technical footballing stuff, leveraging his previous experience in industry and sailing. Above all he is immensely wealthy, and it is known, the rich are the best of us: more perceptive, more wise, strategically brilliant, simply superior. Whom else would you trust to oversee a strategic plan of austerity, the building of a modern arena that appears similar to an abstract design, the acquisition of a new striker?

A Modern Football Hierarchy: Directors Above Managers

This represents a shift we are increasingly seeing in top-tier football. Historically, clubs foolishly entrusted big footballing decisions to low-level employees such as coaches, talent spotters – players themselves. Maybe previously feasible for a young, innovative manager with a philosophy and drive to go into an organization and see their vision through to completion. But how many companies have these guys set up? What number of mass redundancies have they managed? Better by far to invest genuine authority where it rightly belongs: the executive class, the casually dressed executives, the guys with the jaw-dropping professional resumes. It is wiser to decide the strategy by the directors and hire a coach who will adapt their offering accordingly. If managers were once chefs, they are now more akin to Deliveroo drivers: not responsible for the product, but still ultimately answerable if it arrives cold or leaks out to meet standards.

Nowadays, their job has become not about defining the vision and more about marketing it: the receptionist on the front desk, the visible figurehead of an organisation 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 effectively gets sacked for talking. Wilfried Nancy sees his reputation ruined whereas the people who hired him continue to make errors another day.

The Neoliberal Game: Responsibility for the Coaches

And possibly in a small way this represents neoliberalism in action: the rise of a gilded elite who are infallible, whose choices are always sacrosanct, whose errors can always be sacked away without explanation. Hire the system coach and then dismiss them for using too much 3-4-3. Hire the process guy and then discard them for requiring too long. And above all show gratitude; for the incremental increases in ticket costs, for the latest player acquisitions, for the reality that the grownups – however well qualified – are in charge.