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Turns out Ruben Amorim was able to withstand losing against lower-league opposition. Survive losing a crucial European final against one of the worst Tottenham teams for many years. He withstood home defeats to West Ham and Wolves, finishing 15th, his rigid approach, squandering some of the club’s best homegrown talent, the 32% win rate, labeling his team the poorest in Manchester United history. Yet, there existed a single opponent against whom Ruben Amorim was not permitted to dance. You come at Jason Wilcox, and you best not miss.

Regrettably, similar to numerous top-flight defender in Blackburn’s title-winning 1994-95 season, the coach took on Jason Wilcox and appears to have missed. The most distracted of readers can see the irony here: a coach who frequently berated at his players for losing individual battles crumbling in the face of the white heat and animal charisma of a the Premier League’s most intimidating football executives.

And frankly, this whole painful saga seems to paint Jason Wilcox in a whole new light. Perhaps it might have been easy, given his nine months of experience at Southampton, to view Jason Wilcox as merely a functionary in the United exoskeleton: an individual who owed his position as much to his friendship with his former boss a fellow executive rather than any demonstrable skill. How wrong everyone was. In brilliantly outmanoeuvring the club's celebrated head coach, as he outmanoeuvred the hapless Dan Ashworth earlier, Jason Wilcox has proved himself as one of the sport’s true generals: a tactical intellect of which United’s competitors are now justifiably concerned.

The Tactical Conflict Over Formation & Ideology

For example, it was the director who being involved in the leadership that appointed the 3-4-3 fundamentalist Amorim in the first place, was instrumental in trying to persuade him to abandon his favored 3-4-3. Unsurprisingly, these pleas met a certain resistance. But perhaps such directives hold greater authority when delivered from the mouth of a man the unimpeachable soccer background he possesses, a veteran of three England caps and a contributor to a championship team decades past.

Perhaps in time Jason Wilcox might agree to explain his thought processes publicly. Perhaps at some point he might be asked why Amorim is departing with a full payout, with no compensation reduction clause activated. The director speaks rarely in public, and with very good reason. The true intellectuals in football – individuals such as Jason Wilcox – simply operate on a plane exceeding our prosaic understanding. Were he to speak, most likely we would perceive would be high-frequency signals and complex calculations. Desiring an explanation is not quite the same as being ready to receive.

An Ultimate Authority In the Throne

Naturally, by focusing our attention on Jason Wilcox we overlook the real power behind the club's current leadership. The director is, in reality, simply carrying out the directives of his ultimate line manager Sir Jim Ratcliffe, who privately has made very clear his preference for a back four. It is reported, the owner has also proposed deploying the forward in a wing-back role. The owner is eager for United to adopt analytics and metrics. Per reports, during a leadership summit early in his minority ownership, he declared that the team's approach to football “shall be determined by this group”.

Ultimately, Ratcliffe is a specialist in this technical footballing stuff, drawing from his previous experience in industry and yachting. Above all he remains immensely wealthy, and it is known, the wealthy are the best of us: more perceptive, more wise, strategically brilliant, simply superior. Who else would you trust to oversee an enlightened programme of cost-cutting, the construction of a new stadium that looks similar to an abstract design, the signing of a new striker?

A New Football Order: Executives Above Coaches

This represents a shift we are increasingly seeing in top-tier football. For decades, teams mistakenly entrusted big footballing decisions to subordinate staff like managers, talent spotters – players themselves. Maybe previously possible for a young, innovative manager with ideas and drive to join a club and implement their plan supported to fruition. Yet how many companies have these guys established? How many large-scale layoffs have they managed? Far preferable to place genuine authority where it rightly belongs: the leadership tier, the casually dressed executives, the guys with the jaw-dropping professional resumes. Better by far to determine the strategy by the directors and appoint a coach who can tailor their offering accordingly. If managers were formerly chefs, they have become more like delivery personnel: not really responsible for the food, but still finally accountable if it arrives poorly or leaks out of the box.

Nowadays, a coach's role has become less about defining the vision and more about marketing it: the receptionist on the front desk, the visible figurehead of an organisation they have minimal power to influence. A coach at Chelsea takes a squad of literal children into the Champions League and wins two medium-sized trophies, and effectively is dismissed for talking. A manager at Celtic finds his standing damaged whereas those individuals who appointed him live to blunder 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 remain 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. Bring in the process guy and later discard him for taking excessive time. And above all show gratitude; for the incremental season ticket price rises, for the latest player acquisitions, for the fact that the adults – regardless of their expertise – are in charge.