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Itranspired he could survive losing against Grimsby. He weathered losing a crucial continental showpiece versus a particularly poor Spurs sides in living memory. He could survive home defeats to West Ham and Wolves, a lowly league position, his rigid approach, squandering the team's most promising homegrown talent, a poor winning percentage, labeling the squad the poorest the club has ever seen. Yet, there existed one adversary against whom Ruben Amorim would not be allowed to tango. If you challenge Jason Wilcox, and you best not miss.

Unfortunately, like many a Premiership right-back in Blackburn’s title-winning 1994-95 season, Amorim came at Jason Wilcox and appears to have missed. Even the most distracted of readers will notice the irony here: a manager who often railed at his players for losing one-on-one duels crumbling in the face of the intense pressure and formidable presence of one of England's top division's most intimidating football executives.

And frankly, this whole painful saga appears to portray the director in a different perspective. It may have been easy, given his brief stint in a similar role with the Saints, to view him as merely a functionary within the club's structure: an individual who owed his position as much to his friendship with his former boss a fellow executive rather than any verifiable talent. How mistaken we all were. In brilliantly outsmarting the club's celebrated manager, as he outmanoeuvred the unfortunate Dan Ashworth before him, Jason Wilcox has proved himself to be among the sport’s true generals: a strategic mind of which United’s mid-table rivals are now rightly wary.

A Tactical Conflict Over System and Ideology

For example, it was the director who being involved in the leadership that hired the 3-4-3 fundamentalist the coach originally, played a key role in trying to persuade him to abandon his favored 3-4-3. Unsurprisingly, these pleas faced pushback. But perhaps such directives hold greater authority when delivered from the mouth with the unimpeachable soccer background he possesses, holder of three England caps and a contributor to a championship team from 31 years ago.

Maybe eventually Jason Wilcox may be persuaded to outline his thought processes publicly. Perhaps at some point he might be asked why Amorim is departing with a full payout, without any compensation reduction clause in place. But Jason Wilcox speaks rarely in public, and with very good reason. The real thinkers of this sport – men like him – function at a level beyond our own prosaic understanding. Were he to speak, most likely all we would hear is a series of high-frequency signals and complex calculations. Desiring an explanation is not quite equivalent to being prepared to receive.

The Supreme Power Behind Command

But of course, in training our focus on the sporting director we overlook the real power behind the club's current leadership. Jason Wilcox is, after all, merely executing the commands of his ultimate superior the billionaire owner, who in private has made very clear his preference for a four-man defense. According to reports, Ratcliffe has also proposed deploying the forward in a wing-back role. Ratcliffe is keen for United to embrace analytics and metrics. According to ESPN, during a leadership summit soon after his minority ownership, he declared that United’s style of play “will be decided in this room”.

Ultimately, Ratcliffe is a specialist in this technical footballing stuff, leveraging his background in petrochemicals and sailing. Most importantly he is incredibly rich, and as we all know, the rich are the best of us: more insightful, sagacious, strategically brilliant, fundamentally better. Who else could one trust to oversee a strategic plan of cost-cutting, the building of a new stadium that appears similar to an abstract design, the signing of Benjamin Sesko?

A Modern Football Hierarchy: Directors Above Coaches

This is a trend we are increasingly seeing in top-tier of the game. Historically, clubs foolishly entrusted major sporting choices to subordinate staff such as coaches, scouts – players themselves. Maybe previously possible for an up-and-coming, innovative manager with a philosophy and drive to go into a club and see their vision supported to fruition. But how many businesses have these guys established? How many 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 guys with the jaw-dropping LinkedIn profiles. It is wiser to determine the tactics in the boardroom and hire someone who will adapt their offering to suit. If managers were once chefs, they have become more akin to Deliveroo drivers: not really creating the food, yet finally accountable should it be delivered cold or leaks out to meet standards.

In the meantime, their job is increasingly less about defining the vision and more about selling it: the receptionist of the operation, the public face for a club they can do little to influence. A coach at Chelsea takes a squad of literal children into Europe and secures two medium-sized trophies, and effectively gets sacked for speaking out. Wilfried Nancy sees his standing damaged while those individuals who appointed him continue to make errors indefinitely.

The Modern Corporate Football: Responsibility for the Coaches

And perhaps in a small way this represents neoliberalism at work: the rise of a gilded overclass who can never be wrong, whose choices remain untouchable, whose errors can invariably be resolved by sacking without explanation. Appoint the 3-4-3 coach only to dismiss them for playing too much 3-4-3. Bring in the process guy and later bin them for requiring too long. And most importantly show gratitude; for the incremental increases in ticket costs, for your new summer signings, for the fact that the adults – regardless of their expertise – remain in control.