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Itranspired the manager was able to withstand losing against Grimsby. He weathered losing a crucial continental showpiece against a particularly poor Tottenham teams in living memory. He withstood losing at home to West Ham and Wolves, finishing 15th, his rigid approach, laying waste to the team's most promising academy products, a poor winning percentage, calling the squad the worst the club has ever seen. But there was one adversary with whom Ruben Amorim would not be allowed to dance. You come at Jason Wilcox, you had better succeed.

Regrettably, similar to numerous top-flight right-back during Blackburn Rovers' title-winning campaign, Amorim came at the executive and seems to have missed. Even the most distracted of readers will notice the paradoxical situation: a manager who frequently berated his squad for losing individual battles crumbling when confronted by the white heat and animal charisma of a the Premier League’s most intimidating sporting directors.

And frankly, this entire bruising episode seems to paint Jason Wilcox in a whole new light. It may have been easy, based on his brief stint of experience with the Saints, to regard him as little more than a drudge within the club's structure: a man who owed his position largely to his friendship with his former boss Omar Berrada rather than any demonstrable skill. How mistaken we all were. By masterfully outsmarting United’s feted manager, just as he bested the unfortunate a previous executive earlier, Jason Wilcox has demonstrated as one of football's strategic masterminds: a tactical intellect of which the club's mid-table rivals will now be rightly wary.

A Tactical Conflict Over System & Ideology

For example, it was the director , after being involved in the leadership that appointed the 3-4-3 fundamentalist Amorim originally, was instrumental in trying to persuade him to ditch his beloved formation. Naturally, these pleas met a certain resistance. However, these judgements carry more weight when delivered by a man with the unimpeachable football pedigree of Jason Wilcox, holder of three England caps and a role in a championship team from 31 years ago.

Maybe eventually Jason Wilcox may be persuaded to explain his thought processes 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 in place. The director seldom speaks publicly, for excellent reasons. The true intellectuals in football – men like Jason Wilcox – simply operate on a plane exceeding our mundane comprehension. Were he to speak, probably we would perceive is a series of ultrasonic blips and four-dimensional whirring. Desiring an explanation is not the same as being prepared to comprehend it.

The Ultimate Power In Command

Naturally, by focusing our attention on the sporting director we are obscuring the real power behind the club's current leadership. Jason Wilcox is, after all, simply carrying out the commands of his superior Sir Jim Ratcliffe, who in private has emphasized his preference for a four-man defense. According to reports, Ratcliffe has also suggested deploying the forward as a right wing-back. Ratcliffe is keen for the club to adopt data science and metrics. According to ESPN, in an executive meeting soon after his minority ownership, he declared that United’s style to football “will be determined by this group”.

After all, Sir Jim is an expert in these intricate footballing stuff, leveraging his previous experience in petrochemicals and sailing. Most importantly he is incredibly rich, and it is known, the rich are superior: more perceptive, sagacious, more tactically astute, fundamentally superior. Whom else could one trust to oversee a strategic plan of cost-cutting, the building of a modern arena that appears a lot like someone’s leftover knitting, the acquisition of a new striker?

The New Soccer Order: Executives Above Coaches

This is a trend that is becoming prevalent in top-tier of the game. Historically, clubs foolishly delegated major sporting choices to subordinate staff like managers, talent spotters – even footballers. Perhaps it was once feasible for a young, innovative manager with ideas and drive to join an organization and see their vision supported to fruition. Yet how many companies have these guys established? How many mass redundancies have they managed? Far preferable to place the real power where it belongs: the executive class, the casually dressed executives, the guys with the jaw-dropping LinkedIn profiles. It is wiser to determine the tactics in the boardroom and appoint someone who can tailor their offering to suit. If coaches were once chefs, they have become more like delivery personnel: not really responsible for the food, but still finally accountable should it be delivered cold or leaks out of the box.

Nowadays, their job is increasingly less about defining the vision and more about selling it: the receptionist on the front desk, the visible figurehead of an organisation they can do little to influence. A coach at Chelsea takes a squad of literal children into Europe and wins two medium-sized trophies, and effectively is dismissed for talking. A manager at Celtic finds his reputation ruined whereas the people who hired him live to blunder indefinitely.

The Modern Corporate Game: Responsibility for the Few

And perhaps in a small way this represents corporate governance in action: the rise of a privileged elite who can never be wrong, whose choices are always untouchable, whose mistakes can invariably be resolved by sacking without explanation. Appoint the 3-4-3 coach and then fire him for using too much 3-4-3. Bring in the process guy and later discard them for requiring too long. And above all show gratitude; for your modest increases in ticket costs, for your new summer signings, for the fact that the grownups – regardless of their expertise – remain in control.