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Transpired Ruben Amorim could survive a loss to Grimsby. Survive a decisive continental showpiece against one of the worst Spurs sides in living memory. He could survive losing at home to West Ham and Wolves, finishing 15th, the tactical inflexibility, squandering the team's best academy products, the 32% win rate, labeling his team the poorest the club has ever seen. But there was a single opponent against whom Ruben Amorim was not permitted to tango. You come at Jason Wilcox, you had better succeed.

Unfortunately, similar to numerous Premiership defender in Blackburn’s title-winning 1994-95 season, Amorim took on the executive and seems to have failed. Even the most casual observer can see the paradoxical situation: a coach who frequently berated his squad for losing one-on-one duels crumbling when confronted by the intense pressure and animal charisma of a England's top division's most intimidating football executives.

And frankly, this entire bruising episode appears to portray Jason Wilcox in a different perspective. Perhaps it might have been easy, based on his nine months of experience at Southampton, to regard him as little more than a drudge in the United exoskeleton: an individual whose appointment was due largely to his friendship with his former boss Omar Berrada rather than any demonstrable skill. How mistaken we all were. By masterfully outmanoeuvring the club's celebrated manager, as he outmanoeuvred the unfortunate Dan Ashworth earlier, he has demonstrated to be among the sport’s strategic masterminds: a strategic mind that the club's competitors will now be rightly wary.

A Tactical Conflict Over Formation & Ideology

For example, this was the director who being involved in the hierarchy that hired the 3-4-3 fundamentalist the coach originally, played a key role in trying to persuade him to ditch his favored formation. Unsurprisingly, these entreaties met a certain resistance. However, these judgements hold greater authority when issued from the mouth with the unimpeachable football pedigree of Jason Wilcox, holder of international appearances and a contributor to a championship team from 31 years ago.

Maybe eventually Jason Wilcox may be persuaded to explain his reasoning to the rest of us. Maybe one day he might be asked why Amorim is departing with full compensation, with no penalty clause in place. But Jason Wilcox seldom speaks publicly, for excellent reasons. The real thinkers in football – individuals such as Jason Wilcox – simply operate on a plane exceeding our prosaic understanding. If he ever did speak, probably all we would hear is a series of ultrasonic blips and complex calculations. Wanting is not 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 real power behind the club's current leadership. Jason Wilcox is, after all, simply carrying out the commands of his ultimate line manager the billionaire owner, who in private 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 analytics and metrics. Per reports, in an executive meeting early in his minority ownership, he announced that the team's approach to football “shall be determined by this group”.

Ultimately, Ratcliffe is an expert in this technical footballing stuff, leveraging his previous experience in industry and sailing. Above all he remains incredibly rich, and it is known, the rich are the best of us: more insightful, more wise, more tactically astute, fundamentally superior. Whom else would you trust to oversee an enlightened programme of cost-cutting, the construction of a modern arena that appears a lot like an abstract design, the signing of a new striker?

A New Football Order: Directors Above Managers

This is a trend that is becoming prevalent at the elite levels of the game. For decades, teams mistakenly entrusted major sporting choices to subordinate staff such as coaches, talent spotters – even footballers. Perhaps it was once possible for a young, innovative manager with ideas and energy to join an organization and see their vision through to completion. Yet how many companies have such individuals established? How many mass redundancies have they managed? Far preferable to invest genuine authority where it belongs: the leadership tier, the open-necked shirt brigade, the guys with impressive LinkedIn profiles. Better by far to decide the tactics in the boardroom and appoint a coach who can tailor their methods to suit. If coaches were once chefs, they have become more like Deliveroo drivers: not really creating the product, yet ultimately answerable should it be delivered cold or fails of the box.

Nowadays, a coach's role is increasingly not about defining the vision and more about selling it: the receptionist of the operation, the visible figurehead of an organisation they can do little to influence. A coach at Chelsea leads a team of literal children into Europe and wins domestic cups, and effectively is dismissed for talking. A manager at Celtic sees his reputation ruined while the people who appointed him live to blunder another day.

A Neoliberal Game: Accountability for the Coaches

And perhaps in a small way this is simply corporate governance in action: the rise of a privileged overclass who can never be wrong, whose choices remain untouchable, whose mistakes can always be resolved by sacking without justification. Appoint the system coach and then fire them for playing excessively 3-4-3. Hire the project manager and then bin him for taking too long. 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.