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Transpired Ruben Amorim endured a loss to lower-league opposition. He weathered a decisive continental showpiece versus one of the worst Tottenham teams for many years. He could survive losing at home against domestic rivals, a lowly league position, an unwavering system, laying waste to some of the club’s most promising homegrown talent, the 32% win rate, labeling his team the poorest the club has ever seen. But there was a single opponent with whom Ruben Amorim would not be allowed to engage. If you challenge the sporting director, you had better succeed.

Unfortunately, like many a Premiership defender during Blackburn Rovers' title-winning 1994-95 season, the coach came at Jason Wilcox and seems to have failed. The most casual observer can see the irony here: a coach who often railed at his players for failing in individual battles succumbing when confronted by the intense pressure and animal charisma of a England's top division's most feared football executives.

In truth, this entire bruising episode appears to portray the director in a different perspective. It may have been easy, based on his brief stint of experience at Southampton, to view Jason Wilcox as merely a drudge within the club's structure: an individual whose appointment was due largely to his close relationship with ex-colleague Omar Berrada as any verifiable talent. How wrong we all were. In brilliantly outsmarting the club's celebrated head coach, as he outmanoeuvred the unfortunate a previous executive earlier, he has demonstrated to be among the sport’s true generals: a strategic mind that the club's competitors will now be rightly wary.

A Strategic Clash Regarding System & Ideology

For example, this was Jason Wilcox , after having been part of the hierarchy that hired the 3-4-3 fundamentalist the coach in the first place, was instrumental in trying to persuade him to abandon his favored 3-4-3. Naturally, these entreaties 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 decades past.

Perhaps in time he may be persuaded to outline his thought processes to the rest of us. Perhaps at some point he might be asked why Amorim is departing with a full payout, with no penalty clause activated. But Jason Wilcox speaks rarely in public, for excellent reasons. The real thinkers in football – individuals such as him – function at a level beyond our own mundane comprehension. If he ever did speak, probably all we would hear would be ultrasonic blips and four-dimensional whirring. Desiring an explanation is not quite equivalent to being ready to comprehend it.

The Supreme Authority Behind Command

Naturally, in training our focus on Jason Wilcox we overlook the true genius behind the club's current leadership. The director is, after all, merely executing the directives of his ultimate line manager Sir Jim Ratcliffe, who in private has emphasized his desire for a back four. It is reported, the owner has also suggested 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 soon after his minority ownership, he declared that United’s style of play “shall be determined by this group”.

Ultimately, Ratcliffe is an expert in these intricate footballing stuff, leveraging his previous experience in petrochemicals and sailing. Most importantly he remains immensely wealthy, and it is known, the rich are superior: more insightful, sagacious, more tactically astute, fundamentally superior. Who else would you trust to manage an enlightened programme of cost-cutting, the building of a modern arena that looks similar to someone’s leftover knitting, the signing of Benjamin Sesko?

A Modern Soccer Hierarchy: Executives Over Managers

This is a trend that is becoming prevalent in top-tier football. Historically, clubs foolishly entrusted major sporting choices to subordinate staff such as coaches, scouts – even footballers. Maybe previously feasible for an up-and-coming, innovative manager with ideas and drive to join a club and implement their plan supported to fruition. Yet how many businesses have these guys established? How many mass redundancies have they overseen? Better by far to place genuine authority where it belongs: the executive class, the casually dressed executives, the individuals with impressive LinkedIn profiles. It is wiser to decide the strategy by the directors and appoint a coach who can tailor their offering to suit. If coaches were formerly chefs, they have become more like delivery personnel: not responsible for the food, but still finally accountable should it be delivered cold or leaks out to meet standards.

In the meantime, a coach's role has become less about crafting the philosophy and more about marketing it: the front-facing representative on the front desk, the public face of an organisation they can do little to influence. Enzo Maresca leads a team of very young players into the Champions League and wins two medium-sized trophies, and effectively is dismissed for talking. Wilfried Nancy sees his standing damaged whereas those individuals who appointed him live to blunder indefinitely.

The Modern Corporate Football: Accountability Only for the Few

And possibly in a small way this represents neoliberalism at work: the elevation of a privileged elite who can never be wrong, whose choices are always sacrosanct, whose mistakes can always be sacked away without explanation. Appoint the system coach and then fire them for playing too much that system. Bring in the project manager and then discard them for taking too long. And above all 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.