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Transpired Ruben Amorim was able to withstand losing against lower-league opposition. He weathered losing a crucial continental showpiece versus one of the worst Spurs sides for many years. He could survive losing at home against West Ham and Wolves, a lowly league position, his rigid approach, squandering the team's most promising homegrown talent, a poor winning percentage, labeling his team the worst in Manchester United history. But there was one adversary with whom Ruben Amorim was not permitted to dance. You come at Jason Wilcox, you had better succeed.

Unfortunately, similar to numerous top-flight defender during Blackburn Rovers' title-winning 1994-95 season, Amorim took on 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 one-on-one duels succumbing in the face of the white heat and animal charisma of a England's top division's most intimidating football executives.

In truth, this entire bruising episode seems to paint Jason Wilcox in a different perspective. It may have been easy, given his brief stint of experience at Southampton, to regard him as little more than a functionary in the United exoskeleton: an individual who owed his position as much to his friendship with ex-colleague a fellow executive rather than any demonstrable skill. How wrong everyone was. By masterfully outmanoeuvring United’s feted manager, as he outmanoeuvred the hapless a previous executive before him, Jason Wilcox has proved himself as one of football's strategic masterminds: a strategic mind of which the club's competitors will now be rightly wary.

The Strategic Conflict Regarding System and Philosophy

To illustrate, it was Jason Wilcox , after being involved in the hierarchy that hired the 3-4-3 fundamentalist Amorim originally, played a key role in trying to persuade him to abandon his favored 3-4-3. Naturally, these pleas faced pushback. But perhaps these judgements carry more weight when delivered by a man of a man the unimpeachable soccer background he possesses, a veteran of three England caps and a role in a championship team decades past.

Maybe eventually he may be persuaded to explain his thought processes publicly. Maybe one day questions may arise why Amorim is walking away with a full payout, without any compensation reduction clause in place. The director seldom speaks in public, and with very good reason. The true intellectuals of this sport – men like him – simply operate on a plane beyond our own prosaic understanding. Were he to speak, probably we would perceive would be ultrasonic blips and four-dimensional whirring. Wanting is not the same as being prepared to receive.

The Supreme Power Behind Command

But of course, in training our focus on the sporting director we overlook the true genius behind the club's current leadership. The director is, after all, simply carrying out the directives of his superior Sir Jim Ratcliffe, who privately has made very clear his preference for a back four. According to reports, the owner has also suggested deploying the forward as a right wing-back. Ratcliffe is keen for the club to adopt data science and analytics. According to ESPN, in an executive meeting soon after his investment, he declared that United’s style of play “shall be decided in this room”.

After all, Ratcliffe is a specialist in this technical football matters, leveraging his background in petrochemicals and yachting. Above all he remains incredibly rich, and it is known, the wealthy are superior: more insightful, more wise, more tactically astute, fundamentally better. Who else would you trust to oversee an enlightened programme of austerity, the building of a modern arena that appears a lot like an abstract design, the signing of Benjamin Sesko?

A Modern Soccer Order: Directors Over Managers

This represents a shift that is becoming prevalent in top-tier of the game. For decades, teams mistakenly delegated big footballing decisions to subordinate staff such as coaches, talent spotters – even footballers. Maybe previously possible 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 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 leadership tier, the open-necked shirt brigade, the guys with impressive professional resumes. It is wiser to determine the strategy in the boardroom and appoint a coach who will adapt their offering accordingly. If coaches were once chefs, they are now more akin to delivery personnel: not responsible for the product, yet ultimately answerable if it arrives poorly or fails to meet standards.

Nowadays, a coach's role has become less about defining the vision and more about selling it: the front-facing representative on the front desk, the public face of an organisation they have minimal power 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 whereas those individuals who hired him continue to make errors indefinitely.

The Modern Corporate Football: Responsibility for the Coaches

And perhaps on some microcosmic level this is simply corporate governance at work: the rise of a privileged elite who are infallible, whose decisions are always sacrosanct, whose errors can always be sacked away without justification. Hire the 3-4-3 coach and then dismiss them for using excessively 3-4-3. Bring in the process guy and then bin him for taking excessive time. And above all be grateful; for your modest season ticket price rises, for your new player acquisitions, for the reality that the adults – however well qualified – remain in control.