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Turns out the manager could survive a loss to lower-league opposition. He weathered an important European final versus one of the worst Tottenham teams for many years. He withstood losing at home against domestic rivals, a lowly league position, an unwavering system, squandering the team's best academy products, the 32% win rate, labeling the squad the poorest in Manchester United history. But there was one adversary against whom the Portuguese coach would not be allowed to tango. You come at Jason Wilcox, and you best not miss.

Regrettably, similar to numerous Premiership right-back during Blackburn Rovers' championship campaign, the coach came at Jason Wilcox and appears to have failed. Even the most distracted of readers can see the irony here: a manager who often railed at his players for failing in individual battles crumbling in the face of the intense pressure and formidable presence of one of the Premier League’s most intimidating football executives.

In truth, this entire bruising episode seems to paint the director in a different perspective. It may have been easy, given his nine months in a similar role with the Saints, to regard him as little more than a functionary within the club's structure: a man whose appointment was due as much to his close relationship with his former boss a fellow executive rather than any demonstrable skill. How wrong everyone was. By masterfully outsmarting the club's celebrated head coach, as he outmanoeuvred the hapless Dan Ashworth earlier, Jason Wilcox has proved himself to be among the sport’s strategic masterminds: a tactical intellect that United’s competitors will now be rightly wary.

A Tactical Conflict Over System & Philosophy

For example, this was the director , after having been part of the hierarchy that appointed the 3-4-3 fundamentalist Amorim in the first place, played a key role in attempting to convince Amorim to ditch his beloved 3-4-3. Naturally, these pleas faced pushback. However, such directives carry more weight when issued from the mouth with the impeccable soccer background of Jason Wilcox, a veteran of three England caps and a contributor to a championship team from 31 years ago.

Perhaps in time Jason Wilcox may be persuaded to outline his thought processes publicly. Maybe one day he might be asked why Amorim is departing with a full payout, with no penalty clause in place. But Jason Wilcox speaks rarely in public, for excellent reasons. The real thinkers in football – men like Jason Wilcox – simply operate on a plane exceeding our prosaic understanding. Were he to speak, most likely we would perceive would be high-frequency signals and complex calculations. Desiring an explanation is not quite the same as being ready to comprehend it.

The Ultimate Power In Command

But of course, by focusing our attention on the sporting director we are obscuring the true genius behind the modern United throne. The director is, after all, merely executing the directives of his ultimate superior Sir Jim Ratcliffe, who in private has emphasized his preference for a four-man defense. According to reports, Ratcliffe has also proposed deploying the forward as a right wing-back. The owner is eager for the club to embrace data science and analytics. Per reports, during a leadership summit soon after his investment, he declared that United’s style of play “shall be decided in this room”.

Ultimately, Ratcliffe is an expert in this technical football matters, drawing from his background in industry and sailing. Most importantly he remains incredibly rich, and as we all know, the rich are the best of us: more perceptive, more wise, strategically brilliant, simply better. Who else could one trust to oversee an enlightened programme of austerity, the construction of a new stadium that looks a lot like an abstract design, the signing of Benjamin Sesko?

A Modern Soccer Order: Executives Above Managers

This represents a shift we are increasingly seeing at the elite levels football. For decades, clubs foolishly delegated big footballing decisions to subordinate staff such as coaches, talent spotters – players themselves. Maybe previously possible for a young, innovative manager with ideas and drive to go into a club and implement their plan through to completion. Yet how many businesses have such individuals set up? What number of large-scale layoffs have they managed? Better by far to place the real power where it rightly belongs: the leadership tier, the casually dressed executives, the guys with the jaw-dropping LinkedIn profiles. It is wiser to decide the tactics by the directors and hire a coach who will adapt their offering to suit. If managers were formerly chefs, they have become more like delivery personnel: not creating the food, but still ultimately answerable if it arrives poorly or fails of the box.

In the meantime, their job has become not about defining the vision and more about marketing it: the front-facing representative of the operation, the visible figurehead of an organisation they have minimal power to change. A coach at Chelsea leads a team of very young players into the Champions League and wins domestic cups, and effectively gets sacked for talking. A manager at Celtic finds his standing damaged whereas the people who hired him continue to make errors another day.

A Modern Corporate Football: Responsibility for the Few

And possibly in a small way this is simply corporate governance in action: the rise of a privileged elite who are infallible, whose decisions are always untouchable, whose mistakes can always be resolved by sacking without justification. Appoint the system coach and then fire them for using too much that system. Hire the project manager and then discard him for taking too long. And most importantly 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.