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Iturns out he was able to withstand losing against Grimsby. He weathered losing a crucial European final against one of the worst Tottenham teams for many years. He could survive home defeats against West Ham and Wolves, a lowly league position, an unwavering system, squandering the team's best academy products, the 32% win rate, labeling his team the worst the club has ever seen. But there was a single opponent with whom Ruben Amorim would not be allowed to dance. You come at the sporting director, and you best not miss.

Regrettably, like many a Premiership right-back during Blackburn Rovers' title-winning 1994-95 season, the coach took on the executive and appears to have failed. Even the most casual observer can see the paradoxical situation: a coach who often railed his squad for losing individual battles succumbing when confronted by the intense pressure and animal charisma of one of England's top division's most intimidating sporting directors.

In truth, this whole painful saga seems to paint the director in a different perspective. It may have been tempting, given his nine months in a similar role with the Saints, to view him as merely a functionary within the club's structure: an individual whose appointment was due as much to his friendship with ex-colleague Omar Berrada rather than any demonstrable skill. How mistaken everyone was. In brilliantly outmanoeuvring the club's celebrated head coach, just as he bested the hapless Dan Ashworth before him, he has proved himself to be among the sport’s true generals: a tactical intellect that the club's competitors will now be justifiably concerned.

A Strategic Conflict Regarding System and Philosophy

For example, this was the director who having been part of the hierarchy that appointed 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 entreaties were resisted. But perhaps such directives carry more weight when delivered from the mouth of a man the impeccable football pedigree of Jason Wilcox, a veteran of three England caps and a role in a title-winning side decades past.

Maybe eventually he might agree to explain his thought processes to the rest of us. Maybe one day he might be asked why Amorim is departing with full compensation, without any compensation reduction clause in place. But Jason Wilcox speaks rarely in public, and with very good reason. The true intellectuals of this sport – individuals such as Jason Wilcox – function at a level beyond our own prosaic understanding. If he ever did speak, probably we would perceive is a series of high-frequency signals and complex calculations. Desiring an explanation is not quite the same as being ready to comprehend it.

An Ultimate Power Behind Command

Naturally, in training our focus on Jason Wilcox we are obscuring the true genius behind the modern United throne. The director is, after all, merely executing the directives of his ultimate superior Sir Jim Ratcliffe, who in private has emphasized his preference for a back four. According to reports, the owner has also proposed deploying the forward as a right wing-back. The owner is eager for United to embrace data science and metrics. According to ESPN, in an executive meeting early in his investment, he announced that the team's approach to football “will be determined in this room”.

After all, Sir Jim is a specialist in this technical footballing stuff, drawing from his background in petrochemicals and yachting. Above all he remains immensely wealthy, and as we all know, the wealthy are superior: more perceptive, sagacious, strategically brilliant, simply better. Who else could one trust to manage an enlightened programme of austerity, the building of a new stadium that appears a lot like someone’s leftover knitting, the signing of a new striker?

A New Football Order: Executives Above Coaches

This is a trend we are increasingly seeing at the elite levels of the game. Historically, teams mistakenly delegated big footballing decisions to subordinate staff such as coaches, talent spotters – players themselves. Perhaps it was once possible for a young, visionary coach with a philosophy and drive to go into a club and see their vision through to completion. But how many businesses have these guys established? What number of mass redundancies have they managed? Better by far to invest the real power where it rightly belongs: the executive class, the casually dressed executives, the individuals with impressive professional resumes. Better by far to decide the strategy in the boardroom and appoint a coach who will adapt their methods to suit. If coaches were formerly chefs, they are now more like Deliveroo drivers: not responsible for the product, yet ultimately answerable if it arrives cold or leaks out to meet standards.

Nowadays, their job is increasingly less about crafting the philosophy and more about selling it: the receptionist on the front desk, the public face for a club they have minimal power to change. A coach at Chelsea leads a team of very young players into Europe and wins domestic cups, and essentially gets sacked for talking. A manager at Celtic sees his reputation ruined whereas those individuals who appointed him live to blunder another day.

A Modern Corporate Football: Responsibility Only for the Coaches

And possibly in a small way this is simply neoliberalism in action: the elevation of a gilded elite who can never be wrong, whose decisions remain untouchable, whose mistakes can invariably be resolved by sacking without justification. Hire the system coach and then dismiss them for playing excessively 3-4-3. Hire the process guy and later bin them for requiring excessive time. And above all show gratitude; for the incremental season ticket price rises, for the latest player acquisitions, for the fact that the grownups – regardless of their expertise – are in charge.