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Iturns out Ruben Amorim endured losing against lower-league opposition. He weathered losing a crucial continental showpiece versus a particularly poor Spurs sides for many years. He withstood losing at home against West Ham and Wolves, finishing 15th, an unwavering system, undermining some of the club’s most promising academy products, the 32% win rate, calling his team the poorest the club has ever seen. Yet, there existed a single opponent with whom the Portuguese coach was not permitted to dance. If you challenge the sporting director, and you best not miss.

Unfortunately, like many a Premiership defender in Blackburn’s championship 1994-95 season, Amorim took on the executive and seems to have missed. The most casual observer will notice the paradoxical situation: a coach who often railed his squad for losing one-on-one duels succumbing in the face of the white heat and animal charisma of a England's top division's most intimidating football executives.

In truth, this whole painful saga appears to portray Jason Wilcox in a different perspective. It may have been tempting, given his nine months in a similar role at Southampton, to view Jason Wilcox as little more than a functionary within the club's structure: an individual who owed his position as much to his close relationship with ex-colleague Omar Berrada rather than any demonstrable skill. How wrong we all were. In brilliantly outmanoeuvring the club's celebrated manager, as he outmanoeuvred the hapless Dan Ashworth earlier, Jason Wilcox has proved himself as one of the sport’s true generals: a strategic mind of which United’s mid-table rivals are now rightly wary.

A Strategic Clash Regarding Formation & Philosophy

To illustrate, this was Jason Wilcox who being involved in the leadership that hired the rigid 3-4-3 advocate the coach in the first place, played a key role in attempting to convince Amorim to abandon his beloved 3-4-3. Naturally, these pleas met a certain resistance. However, these judgements carry more weight when delivered from the mouth with the unimpeachable soccer background of Jason Wilcox, a veteran of international appearances and a role in a title-winning side from 31 years ago.

Perhaps in time Jason Wilcox may be persuaded to outline his reasoning publicly. Perhaps at some point he might be asked why Amorim is departing with full compensation, without any penalty clause activated. The director speaks rarely publicly, and with very good reason. The true intellectuals in football – individuals such as Jason Wilcox – simply operate at a level beyond our own prosaic understanding. If he ever did speak, most likely we would perceive is a series of ultrasonic blips and four-dimensional whirring. Desiring an explanation is not quite equivalent to being ready to comprehend it.

The Supreme Power Behind Command

But of course, by focusing our attention on Jason Wilcox we are obscuring the true genius behind the club's current leadership. Jason Wilcox is, in reality, merely executing the directives of his ultimate line manager the billionaire owner, who in private has emphasized his desire for a four-man defense. According to reports, the owner has also proposed playing Bryan Mbeumo as a right wing-back. Ratcliffe is keen for the club to embrace data science and analytics. According to ESPN, in an executive meeting early in his investment, he declared that the team's approach to football “shall be determined in this room”.

After all, Ratcliffe is a specialist in this technical footballing stuff, leveraging his background in petrochemicals and yachting. Above all he remains incredibly rich, and as we all know, the rich are the best of us: more insightful, more wise, more tactically astute, fundamentally better. Who else would you trust to manage a strategic plan of cost-cutting, the building of a new stadium that looks similar to someone’s leftover knitting, the acquisition of Benjamin Sesko?

A Modern Soccer Order: Executives Above Coaches

This represents a shift we are increasingly seeing at the elite levels of the game. Historically, clubs foolishly entrusted big footballing decisions to subordinate staff like managers, scouts – players themselves. Perhaps it was once possible for an up-and-coming, visionary coach with a philosophy and drive to join an organization and see their vision through to completion. Yet how many businesses have these guys set up? How many mass redundancies have they overseen? Far preferable to invest the real power where it belongs: the executive class, the open-necked shirt brigade, the guys with impressive LinkedIn profiles. It is wiser to decide the tactics by the directors and hire a coach who can tailor their offering to suit. If coaches were once chefs, they are now more akin to delivery personnel: not really creating the product, yet finally accountable if it arrives cold or leaks out to meet standards.

In the meantime, a coach's role is increasingly less about defining the vision and more about marketing it: the front-facing representative on the front desk, the visible figurehead of an organisation they can do little to influence. Enzo Maresca takes a squad of very young players into the Champions League and secures domestic cups, and effectively is dismissed for talking. A manager at Celtic sees his reputation ruined whereas the people who appointed him continue to make errors indefinitely.

A Neoliberal Football: Accountability Only for the Coaches

And possibly in a small way this represents neoliberalism in action: the rise of a privileged elite who can never be wrong, whose choices remain sacrosanct, whose mistakes can invariably be sacked away without explanation. Appoint the 3-4-3 coach only to fire them for using excessively 3-4-3. Bring in the project manager and later discard them for requiring excessive time. And above all show gratitude; for your modest season ticket price rises, for the latest player acquisitions, for the fact that the adults – regardless of their expertise – are in charge.