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Iturns out the manager was able to withstand losing against lower-league opposition. Survive a decisive European final against one of the worst Spurs sides in living memory. He could survive losing at home against domestic rivals, a lowly league position, an unwavering system, undermining the team's most promising homegrown talent, the 32% win rate, calling his team the worst the club has ever seen. But there was one adversary against whom the Portuguese coach would not be allowed to dance. If you challenge the sporting director, you had better succeed.

Unfortunately, like many a top-flight right-back in Blackburn’s title-winning campaign, Amorim took on Jason Wilcox and seems to have failed. The most casual observer will notice the irony here: a coach who often railed his squad for losing individual battles succumbing when confronted by the white heat and animal charisma of a the Premier League’s most intimidating football executives.

And frankly, this whole painful saga appears to portray Jason Wilcox in a different perspective. Perhaps it might have been easy, based on his nine months of experience with the Saints, to regard Jason Wilcox as little more than a functionary in the United exoskeleton: an individual whose appointment was due as much to his close relationship with ex-colleague a fellow executive as any demonstrable skill. How wrong we all were. In brilliantly outsmarting United’s feted head coach, as he outmanoeuvred the unfortunate Dan Ashworth before him, Jason Wilcox has demonstrated as one of the sport’s strategic masterminds: a tactical intellect that United’s mid-table rivals are now rightly wary.

The Strategic Clash Over System & Ideology

To illustrate, this was Jason Wilcox who being involved in the leadership that hired the rigid 3-4-3 advocate Amorim in the first place, played a key role in attempting to convince him to abandon his favored formation. Unsurprisingly, these entreaties were resisted. But perhaps such directives hold greater authority when delivered by a man with the impeccable football pedigree of Jason Wilcox, holder of international appearances and a role in a title-winning side decades past.

Maybe eventually Jason Wilcox might agree to explain his reasoning publicly. Maybe one day he might be asked regarding why the coach is walking away with a full payout, without any compensation reduction clause activated. But Jason Wilcox seldom speaks publicly, for excellent reasons. The true intellectuals of this sport – men like him – simply operate at a level exceeding our mundane comprehension. Were he to speak, probably we would perceive is a series of ultrasonic blips and complex calculations. Wanting is not quite the same as being ready to receive.

An Supreme Authority In Command

But of course, by focusing our attention on Jason Wilcox we are obscuring the true genius behind the club's current leadership. The director is, after all, merely executing the directives of his ultimate superior Sir Jim Ratcliffe, who privately has made very clear his desire for a four-man defense. According to reports, the owner has also proposed deploying the forward in a wing-back role. The owner is eager for United to adopt analytics and analytics. According to ESPN, during a leadership summit soon after his minority ownership, he announced that United’s style to football “shall be determined in this room”.

After all, Sir Jim is a specialist in this technical footballing stuff, leveraging his previous experience in petrochemicals and yachting. Above all he remains immensely wealthy, and it is known, the rich are the best of us: more insightful, sagacious, strategically brilliant, fundamentally superior. Who else could one trust to oversee an enlightened programme of cost-cutting, the construction of a new stadium that appears a lot like an abstract design, the signing of a new striker?

The Modern Football Hierarchy: Executives Above Coaches

This is a trend we are increasingly seeing at the elite levels of the game. Historically, teams mistakenly delegated major sporting choices to low-level employees such as coaches, talent spotters – even footballers. Maybe previously possible for a young, visionary coach with a philosophy and energy to join an organization and implement their plan through to completion. Yet how many businesses have such individuals set up? What number of large-scale layoffs have they managed? Better by far to place the real power where it rightly belongs: the executive class, the casually dressed executives, the guys with impressive LinkedIn profiles. It is wiser to decide the strategy by the directors and hire someone who can tailor their offering accordingly. If managers were once chefs, they have become more like Deliveroo drivers: not really responsible for the product, yet ultimately answerable if it arrives cold or leaks out to meet standards.

In the meantime, their job is increasingly less about defining the vision and more about selling it: the receptionist on the front desk, the public face for a club they can do little to change. Enzo Maresca leads a team of literal children into Europe and wins two medium-sized trophies, and effectively is dismissed for talking. Wilfried Nancy sees his standing damaged whereas the people who hired him live to blunder indefinitely.

A Neoliberal Football: Responsibility for the Coaches

And perhaps on some microcosmic level this represents neoliberalism at work: the elevation of a privileged elite who can never be wrong, whose choices are always sacrosanct, whose mistakes can invariably be sacked away without justification. Hire the system coach only to dismiss them for using excessively that system. Hire the project manager and then discard him for requiring too long. And most importantly be grateful; for the incremental season ticket price rises, for the latest player acquisitions, for the reality that the adults – regardless of their expertise – are in charge.