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Tbecame clear the manager could survive a loss to Grimsby. He weathered a decisive continental showpiece versus one of the worst Tottenham teams for many years. He could survive losing at home against domestic rivals, finishing 15th, the tactical inflexibility, undermining the team's best academy products, a poor winning percentage, labeling his team the worst the club has ever seen. But there was one adversary against whom Ruben Amorim would not be allowed to tango. If you challenge Jason Wilcox, you had better succeed.

Unfortunately, like many a top-flight defender in Blackburn’s championship campaign, the coach came at the executive and appears to have failed. Even the most distracted of readers can see the paradoxical situation: a coach who often railed his squad for failing in one-on-one duels succumbing in the face of the intense pressure and animal charisma of a the Premier League’s most feared football executives.

In truth, this whole painful saga appears to portray the director in a whole new light. It may have been tempting, based on his nine months of experience at Southampton, to regard Jason Wilcox as little more than a functionary in the United exoskeleton: an individual whose appointment was due largely to his close relationship with ex-colleague a fellow executive as any demonstrable skill. How mistaken we all were. By masterfully outsmarting the club's celebrated head coach, just as he bested the unfortunate a previous executive earlier, Jason Wilcox has proved himself to be among football's true generals: a strategic mind of which the club's mid-table rivals will now be rightly wary.

A Strategic Clash Over System and Ideology

To illustrate, it was the director , after having been part of the hierarchy that appointed the 3-4-3 fundamentalist the coach originally, played a key role in trying to persuade him to abandon his favored formation. Unsurprisingly, these entreaties met a certain resistance. However, these judgements carry more weight when delivered by a man of a man the unimpeachable football pedigree of Jason Wilcox, holder of three England caps and a role in a championship team from 31 years ago.

Perhaps in time Jason Wilcox may be persuaded to outline his reasoning to the rest of us. Maybe one day questions may arise regarding why the coach is walking away with a full payout, without any compensation reduction clause activated. But Jason Wilcox speaks rarely publicly, for excellent reasons. The real thinkers in football – individuals such as Jason Wilcox – function at a level exceeding our prosaic understanding. If he ever did speak, probably we would perceive would be ultrasonic blips and four-dimensional whirring. Wanting is not equivalent to being ready to comprehend it.

The Supreme Power In Command

Naturally, in training our focus on Jason Wilcox we are obscuring the true genius behind the modern United throne. The director is, in reality, simply carrying out the directives of his ultimate superior Sir Jim Ratcliffe, who in private has made very clear his preference for a back four. According to reports, the owner has also proposed deploying the forward as a right wing-back. The owner is eager for the club to embrace data science and metrics. According to ESPN, in an executive meeting early in his minority ownership, he announced that United’s style of play “shall be decided in this room”.

Ultimately, Ratcliffe is an expert in this technical football matters, leveraging his previous experience in petrochemicals and sailing. Most importantly he remains incredibly rich, and it is known, the wealthy are superior: more insightful, more wise, more tactically astute, fundamentally superior. Whom else would you trust to manage a strategic plan of austerity, the building of a modern arena that looks a lot like someone’s leftover knitting, the signing of Benjamin Sesko?

A New Football Order: Executives Above Coaches

This is a trend that is becoming prevalent at the elite levels of the game. Historically, teams mistakenly delegated big footballing decisions to subordinate staff such as coaches, talent spotters – players themselves. Perhaps it was once feasible for a young, innovative manager with a philosophy and drive to go into a club and implement their plan through to completion. But how many companies have such individuals established? What number of large-scale layoffs have they overseen? Better by far to place genuine authority where it rightly belongs: the executive class, the casually dressed executives, the individuals with the jaw-dropping LinkedIn profiles. It is wiser to decide the strategy by the directors and hire a coach who can tailor their offering to suit. If coaches were once chefs, they are now more like Deliveroo drivers: not really responsible for the food, but still finally accountable if it arrives poorly or leaks out to meet standards.

Nowadays, their job has become less about defining the vision and more about marketing it: the receptionist of the operation, the visible figurehead for a club they have minimal power to influence. A coach at Chelsea takes a squad of very young players into the Champions League and wins two medium-sized trophies, and effectively gets sacked for speaking out. Wilfried Nancy sees his standing damaged whereas the people who appointed him continue to make errors another day.

A Neoliberal Game: Responsibility Only for the Coaches

And perhaps in a small way this represents corporate governance at work: the elevation of a gilded overclass who can never be wrong, whose decisions remain sacrosanct, whose mistakes can always be resolved by sacking without justification. Hire the 3-4-3 coach only to fire them for playing excessively that system. Bring in the process guy and later bin them for requiring excessive time. And above all show gratitude; for the incremental increases in ticket costs, for the latest player acquisitions, for the fact that the adults – however well qualified – remain in control.