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Iturns out Ruben Amorim was able to withstand a loss to lower-league opposition. He weathered an important continental showpiece against one of the worst Spurs sides in living memory. He withstood losing at home against West Ham and Wolves, a lowly league position, an unwavering system, laying waste to the team's most promising academy products, the 32% win rate, labeling his team the poorest in Manchester United history. Yet, there existed one adversary with whom the Portuguese coach would not be allowed to dance. If you challenge Jason Wilcox, you had better succeed.

Regrettably, similar to numerous Premiership defender during Blackburn Rovers' title-winning 1994-95 season, the coach took on Jason Wilcox and appears to have missed. Even the most casual observer will notice the paradoxical situation: a coach who often railed his squad for failing in one-on-one duels crumbling in the face of the intense pressure and animal charisma of one of the Premier League’s most intimidating sporting directors.

And frankly, this entire painful saga seems to paint the director in a different perspective. Perhaps it might have been tempting, based on his nine months in a similar role with the Saints, to regard Jason Wilcox as merely a drudge in the United exoskeleton: a man whose appointment was due as much to his close relationship with his former boss a fellow executive rather than any verifiable talent. How mistaken we all were. In brilliantly outsmarting United’s feted manager, just as he bested the unfortunate Dan Ashworth before him, Jason Wilcox has demonstrated to be among football's strategic masterminds: a tactical intellect of which United’s mid-table rivals will now be justifiably concerned.

The Strategic Clash Over System and Ideology

For example, it was Jason Wilcox who being involved in the leadership that hired the rigid 3-4-3 advocate Amorim in the first place, played a key role in trying to persuade him to ditch his beloved 3-4-3. Unsurprisingly, these entreaties met a certain resistance. However, these judgements carry more weight when delivered from the mouth of a man the unimpeachable soccer background of Jason Wilcox, a veteran of international appearances and a role in a championship team decades past.

Maybe eventually he might agree to explain his thought processes to the rest of us. Maybe one day questions may arise why Amorim is departing with full compensation, with no compensation reduction clause activated. The director seldom speaks in public, for excellent reasons. The true intellectuals of this sport – individuals such as him – simply operate at a level beyond our own prosaic understanding. Were he to speak, most likely all we would hear would be ultrasonic blips and complex calculations. Desiring an explanation is not equivalent to being ready to comprehend it.

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. Jason Wilcox is, after all, merely executing the commands of his ultimate superior Sir Jim Ratcliffe, who in private has made very clear his desire for a back four. It is reported, the owner has also proposed deploying the forward in a wing-back role. Ratcliffe is keen for the club to embrace analytics and analytics. According to ESPN, in an executive meeting soon after his minority ownership, he announced that the team's approach of play “will be determined in this room”.

After all, Ratcliffe is an expert in this technical footballing stuff, drawing from his previous experience in industry and sailing. Above all he remains immensely wealthy, and as we all know, the wealthy are the best of us: more insightful, sagacious, strategically brilliant, simply better. Who else would you trust to manage a strategic plan of cost-cutting, the building of a modern arena that looks similar to an abstract design, the acquisition of a new striker?

A New Soccer Order: Directors Above Coaches

This is a trend we are increasingly seeing in top-tier of the game. For decades, teams mistakenly entrusted big footballing decisions to subordinate staff such as coaches, talent spotters – players themselves. Maybe previously feasible for an up-and-coming, visionary coach with ideas and drive to join an organization and see their vision through to completion. But how many companies have such individuals established? What number of large-scale layoffs have they managed? Far preferable to invest genuine authority where it belongs: the leadership tier, the open-necked shirt brigade, the individuals with the jaw-dropping professional resumes. It is wiser to determine the strategy by the directors and hire a coach who will adapt their offering accordingly. If coaches were once chefs, they have become more like delivery personnel: not really creating the food, yet finally accountable if it arrives cold or leaks out to meet standards.

In the meantime, their job has become less about crafting the philosophy and more about marketing it: the receptionist of the operation, the public face of an organisation they have minimal power to influence. Enzo Maresca takes a squad of very young players into Europe and secures domestic cups, and essentially is dismissed for talking. A manager at Celtic finds his reputation ruined while the people who appointed him live to blunder indefinitely.

A Neoliberal Game: Accountability Only for the Few

And possibly on some microcosmic level this represents neoliberalism in action: the rise of a privileged overclass who can never be wrong, whose decisions are always untouchable, whose mistakes can invariably be sacked away without justification. Hire the system coach and then dismiss them for playing excessively 3-4-3. Bring in the project manager and then bin him for requiring excessive time. And above all be grateful; for your modest increases in ticket costs, for your new player acquisitions, for the fact that the adults – regardless of their expertise – remain in control.