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Itbecame clear he endured losing against lower-league opposition. Survive an important European final versus one of the worst Tottenham teams in living memory. He could survive losing at home to West Ham and Wolves, finishing 15th, an unwavering system, squandering some of the club’s most promising academy products, the 32% win rate, calling the squad the poorest the club has ever seen. Yet, there existed a single opponent against whom Ruben Amorim would not be allowed to dance. If you challenge the sporting director, and you best not miss.

Unfortunately, like many a Premiership right-back in Blackburn’s title-winning 1994-95 season, Amorim took on Jason Wilcox and appears to have missed. The most casual observer can see the paradoxical situation: a manager who frequently berated at his players for losing one-on-one duels succumbing when confronted by the white heat and formidable presence of a the Premier League’s most intimidating football executives.

And frankly, this entire painful saga appears to portray the director in a whole new light. Perhaps it might have been easy, given his brief stint of experience at Southampton, to regard him as merely a drudge in the United exoskeleton: an individual who owed his position largely to his friendship with his former boss a fellow executive rather than any verifiable talent. How mistaken everyone was. By masterfully outmanoeuvring the club's celebrated manager, just as he bested the unfortunate Dan Ashworth before him, he has proved himself as one of football's true generals: a strategic mind of which United’s competitors will now be rightly wary.

The Strategic Clash Regarding System and Ideology

For example, it was Jason Wilcox , after being involved in the leadership that appointed the rigid 3-4-3 advocate Amorim originally, played a key role in trying to persuade Amorim to ditch his favored formation. Naturally, these pleas faced pushback. However, such directives carry more weight when delivered from the mouth with the impeccable soccer background of Jason Wilcox, a veteran of international appearances and a contributor to a championship team decades past.

Perhaps in time he may be persuaded to explain his reasoning to the rest of us. Perhaps at some point he might be asked why Amorim is walking away with full compensation, without any penalty clause in place. The director speaks rarely in public, for excellent reasons. The real thinkers of this sport – individuals such as him – simply operate on a plane exceeding our prosaic understanding. If he ever did speak, most likely we would perceive is a series of ultrasonic blips and four-dimensional whirring. Desiring an explanation is not quite equivalent to being ready to comprehend it.

An Ultimate Power Behind Command

But of course, by focusing our attention on Jason Wilcox we overlook the real power behind the club's current leadership. Jason Wilcox is, in reality, simply carrying out the directives of his superior Sir Jim Ratcliffe, who privately has made very clear his desire for a four-man defense. It is reported, the owner has also suggested deploying the forward in a wing-back role. The owner is eager for the club to adopt analytics and metrics. Per reports, during a leadership summit soon after his investment, he announced that United’s style to football “will be decided by this group”.

After all, Sir Jim is a specialist in these intricate footballing stuff, drawing from his previous experience in industry and sailing. Above all he remains immensely wealthy, and as we all know, the wealthy are the best of us: more perceptive, sagacious, more tactically astute, simply better. Whom else could one trust to manage a strategic plan of cost-cutting, the building of a modern arena that looks similar to someone’s leftover knitting, the signing of a new striker?

The New Football Hierarchy: Executives Over Managers

This is a trend we are increasingly seeing at the elite levels football. For decades, clubs foolishly entrusted big footballing decisions to low-level employees such as coaches, talent spotters – even footballers. Maybe previously possible for an up-and-coming, innovative manager with ideas and drive to go into a club and implement their plan through to completion. Yet how many businesses have these guys set up? What number of mass redundancies have they overseen? Better by far to invest genuine authority where it belongs: the executive class, the casually dressed executives, the guys with impressive LinkedIn profiles. Better by far to decide the tactics by the directors and appoint a coach who can tailor their methods to suit. If managers were once chefs, they have become more like Deliveroo drivers: not really creating the food, yet ultimately answerable if it arrives cold or leaks out of the box.

In the meantime, their job has become less about defining the vision and more about marketing it: the receptionist of the operation, the visible figurehead of an organisation they have minimal power to change. Enzo Maresca takes a squad of literal children into Europe and wins domestic cups, and essentially is dismissed for talking. Wilfried Nancy finds his standing damaged whereas the people who appointed him live to blunder another day.

The Modern Corporate Game: Responsibility for the Few

And perhaps on some microcosmic level this is simply neoliberalism in action: the rise of a privileged elite who can never be wrong, whose decisions remain untouchable, whose mistakes can always be sacked away without justification. Appoint the system coach and then dismiss him for using too much 3-4-3. Bring in the process guy and later bin him for taking too long. And most importantly be grateful; for the incremental season ticket price rises, for your new summer signings, for the reality that the adults – however well qualified – remain in control.