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Itranspired the manager endured losing against Grimsby. He weathered losing a crucial continental showpiece against a particularly poor Spurs sides in living memory. He withstood home defeats to West Ham and Wolves, a lowly league position, the tactical inflexibility, undermining some of the club’s best homegrown talent, the 32% win rate, calling the squad the worst the club has ever seen. But there was a single opponent against whom the Portuguese coach would not be allowed to tango. You come at Jason Wilcox, you had better succeed.

Unfortunately, like many a Premiership defender in Blackburn’s title-winning 1994-95 season, Amorim came at Jason Wilcox and seems to have failed. Even the most casual observer will notice the paradoxical situation: a coach who frequently berated at his players for failing in individual battles succumbing in the face of the intense pressure and formidable presence of a England's top division's most feared sporting directors.

And frankly, this whole painful saga seems to paint Jason Wilcox in a whole new light. It may have been easy, based on his brief stint of experience with the Saints, to regard him as little more than a drudge in the United exoskeleton: an individual who owed his position as much to his close relationship with his former boss Omar Berrada as any demonstrable skill. How mistaken we all were. By masterfully outmanoeuvring United’s feted head coach, just as he bested the unfortunate a previous executive earlier, Jason Wilcox has proved himself to be among the sport’s strategic masterminds: a tactical intellect that United’s mid-table rivals are now rightly wary.

A Tactical Clash Over System & Ideology

For example, it was Jason Wilcox who being involved in the hierarchy that appointed the rigid 3-4-3 advocate the coach originally, played a key role in trying to persuade Amorim to ditch his beloved 3-4-3. Naturally, these pleas faced pushback. But perhaps such directives hold greater authority when delivered from the mouth of a man the impeccable soccer background he possesses, a veteran of international appearances and a role in a championship team decades past.

Maybe eventually he may be persuaded to outline his reasoning publicly. Maybe one day he might be asked why Amorim is departing with full compensation, without any penalty clause in place. But Jason Wilcox seldom speaks in public, for excellent reasons. The real thinkers in football – men like Jason Wilcox – simply operate on a plane beyond our own prosaic understanding. Were he to speak, most likely all we would hear is a series of ultrasonic blips and four-dimensional whirring. Wanting is not quite the same as being ready to comprehend it.

The Supreme Power Behind Command

But of course, in training our focus on Jason Wilcox we overlook the real power behind the modern United throne. The director is, after all, merely executing the directives of his superior Sir Jim Ratcliffe, who in private has made very clear his desire for a back four. It is reported, the owner has also suggested playing Bryan Mbeumo in a wing-back role. Ratcliffe is keen for the club to embrace analytics and analytics. According to ESPN, during a leadership summit soon after his minority ownership, he announced that the team's approach to football “will be decided by this group”.

Ultimately, Sir Jim is an expert in this technical football matters, drawing from his previous experience in petrochemicals and yachting. Most importantly he is immensely wealthy, and as we all know, the wealthy are the best of us: more perceptive, sagacious, more tactically astute, fundamentally better. Whom else could one trust to manage a strategic plan of cost-cutting, the construction of a modern arena that looks similar to someone’s leftover knitting, the signing of a new striker?

A Modern Football Hierarchy: Executives Over Managers

This represents a shift that is becoming prevalent in top-tier of the game. For decades, clubs foolishly entrusted major sporting choices to subordinate staff like managers, talent spotters – even footballers. Perhaps it was once feasible for a young, visionary coach with a philosophy and energy to join a club and see their vision supported to fruition. But how many businesses have these guys set up? How many mass redundancies have they managed? Far preferable to invest the real power where it rightly belongs: the leadership tier, the casually dressed executives, the guys with the jaw-dropping LinkedIn profiles. It is wiser to decide the tactics in the boardroom and hire someone who will adapt their methods to suit. If managers were formerly chefs, they are now more like Deliveroo drivers: not really creating the product, but still ultimately answerable if it arrives cold or fails to meet standards.

Nowadays, their job is increasingly not about defining the vision and more about selling it: the front-facing representative of the operation, the visible figurehead of an organisation they can do little 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 talking. Wilfried Nancy finds his reputation ruined whereas those individuals who appointed him continue to make errors indefinitely.

A Modern Corporate Football: Responsibility Only for the Coaches

And perhaps in a small way this represents neoliberalism at work: the rise of a privileged elite who can never be wrong, whose decisions are always sacrosanct, whose mistakes can always be sacked away without explanation. Appoint the 3-4-3 coach and then dismiss him for playing excessively 3-4-3. Hire the project manager and later discard them for taking too long. And above all show gratitude; for the incremental increases in ticket costs, for the latest summer signings, for the fact that the adults – regardless of their expertise – are in charge.