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Transpired the manager was able to withstand losing against Grimsby. Survive an important continental showpiece against a particularly poor Spurs sides in living memory. He could survive losing at home against West Ham and Wolves, finishing 15th, an unwavering system, squandering some of the club’s most promising homegrown talent, a poor winning percentage, calling his team the worst the club has ever seen. But there was a single opponent with whom the Portuguese coach would not be allowed to tango. You come at the sporting director, and you best not miss.

Regrettably, like many a Premiership right-back in Blackburn’s title-winning 1994-95 season, the coach took on Jason Wilcox and appears to have failed. Even the most casual observer will notice the irony here: a coach who frequently berated his squad for failing in individual battles crumbling in the face of the intense pressure and formidable presence of one of England's top division's most intimidating sporting directors.

In truth, this entire bruising episode 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 regard Jason Wilcox as merely a functionary in the United exoskeleton: a man who owed his position largely to his friendship with his former boss Omar Berrada as any verifiable talent. How mistaken everyone was. In brilliantly outsmarting United’s feted head coach, as he outmanoeuvred the unfortunate a previous executive earlier, he has proved himself as one of the sport’s strategic masterminds: a strategic mind that United’s mid-table rivals will now be rightly wary.

The Tactical Clash Over Formation & Ideology

To illustrate, this was the director who being involved in the leadership that appointed the 3-4-3 fundamentalist the coach in the first place, played a key role in attempting to convince Amorim to abandon his beloved 3-4-3. Unsurprisingly, these pleas faced pushback. However, these judgements hold greater authority when delivered by a man with the impeccable football pedigree of Jason Wilcox, a veteran of three England caps and a contributor to a title-winning side from 31 years ago.

Maybe eventually he may be persuaded to outline his reasoning publicly. Maybe one day he might be asked regarding why the coach is departing with a full payout, with no penalty clause in place. But Jason Wilcox speaks rarely publicly, for excellent reasons. The true intellectuals in football – individuals such as Jason Wilcox – function on a plane exceeding our mundane comprehension. Were he to speak, most likely we would perceive would be ultrasonic blips and complex calculations. Wanting is not equivalent to being prepared to receive.

The Supreme Power In Command

But of course, in training our focus on the sporting director we are obscuring the true genius behind the club's current leadership. The director is, in reality, merely executing the directives of his line manager Sir Jim Ratcliffe, who privately has made very clear his desire for a back four. According to reports, Ratcliffe has also suggested deploying the forward as a right wing-back. Ratcliffe is keen for United to embrace data science and analytics. Per reports, in an executive meeting soon after his minority ownership, he announced that United’s style to football “shall be determined in this room”.

Ultimately, Sir Jim is a specialist in these intricate footballing stuff, leveraging his previous experience in petrochemicals and sailing. Most importantly he remains incredibly rich, and it is known, the rich are the best of us: more insightful, more wise, more tactically astute, fundamentally superior. Who else would you trust to oversee an enlightened programme of austerity, the construction of a modern arena that looks a lot like someone’s leftover knitting, the acquisition of Benjamin Sesko?

The Modern Soccer Hierarchy: Executives Over Managers

This represents a shift we are increasingly seeing at the elite levels of the game. Historically, clubs foolishly entrusted major sporting choices to subordinate staff like managers, scouts – even footballers. Maybe previously possible for an up-and-coming, visionary coach with a philosophy and energy to join an organization and implement their plan through to completion. Yet how many businesses have these guys established? What number of mass redundancies have they managed? Better by far to invest genuine authority where it belongs: the leadership tier, the open-necked shirt brigade, the guys with impressive LinkedIn profiles. It is wiser to determine the strategy in the boardroom and appoint a coach who can tailor their offering to suit. If coaches were once chefs, they have become more akin to Deliveroo drivers: not really creating the product, but still ultimately answerable if it arrives poorly or fails of the box.

In the meantime, their job has become not about crafting the philosophy and more about selling it: the front-facing representative on the front desk, the visible figurehead of an organisation they can do little to influence. Enzo Maresca leads a team of literal children into the Champions League and wins two medium-sized trophies, and effectively gets sacked for talking. A manager at Celtic sees his reputation ruined while those individuals who hired him live to blunder another day.

The Modern Corporate Game: Accountability Only for the Coaches

And possibly on some microcosmic level this represents neoliberalism at work: the rise of a gilded elite who can never be wrong, whose choices are always sacrosanct, whose errors can invariably 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 bin him for taking excessive time. And above all show gratitude; for the incremental increases in ticket costs, for the latest player acquisitions, for the reality that the grownups – however well qualified – are in charge.