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Iturns out Ruben Amorim could survive losing against lower-league opposition. He weathered losing a crucial European final against one of the worst Tottenham teams in living memory. He withstood home defeats to domestic rivals, a lowly league position, his rigid approach, laying waste to some of the club’s most promising homegrown talent, the 32% win rate, calling the squad the poorest the club has ever seen. But there was a single opponent against whom the Portuguese coach was not permitted to tango. You come at the sporting director, you had better succeed.

Unfortunately, like many a Premiership defender during Blackburn Rovers' championship campaign, the coach came at the executive and seems to have missed. Even the most distracted of readers can see the paradoxical situation: a coach who frequently berated his squad for failing in individual battles succumbing when confronted by the white heat and formidable presence of a the Premier League’s most intimidating football executives.

And frankly, this entire bruising episode appears to portray the director in a different perspective. Perhaps it might have been tempting, given his brief stint of experience with the Saints, to view Jason Wilcox as little more than a functionary within the club's structure: an individual who owed his position largely to his friendship with his former boss a fellow executive as any demonstrable skill. How wrong everyone was. By masterfully outsmarting the club's celebrated head coach, just as he bested the unfortunate a previous executive before him, Jason Wilcox has demonstrated as one of football's strategic masterminds: a strategic mind of which the club's mid-table rivals will now be justifiably concerned.

The Tactical Conflict Over System and Philosophy

To illustrate, it was Jason Wilcox , after having been part of the leadership that hired the rigid 3-4-3 advocate the coach in the first place, played a key role in trying to persuade him to abandon his beloved formation. Unsurprisingly, these pleas faced pushback. However, such directives hold greater authority when delivered by a man of a man the unimpeachable soccer background he possesses, holder of international appearances and a role in a championship team from 31 years ago.

Maybe eventually he may be persuaded to outline his reasoning publicly. Perhaps at some point he might be asked why Amorim is walking away with full compensation, without any compensation reduction clause in place. The director speaks rarely in public, and with very good reason. The real thinkers in football – men like him – simply operate at a level exceeding our mundane comprehension. Were he to speak, most likely all we would hear is a series of ultrasonic blips and complex calculations. Desiring an explanation is not equivalent to being prepared to comprehend it.

The Ultimate Authority In Command

But of course, by focusing our attention on Jason Wilcox we overlook the real power behind the club's current leadership. The director is, after all, simply carrying out the commands of his ultimate line manager the billionaire owner, who privately has made very clear his desire for a four-man defense. According to reports, Ratcliffe has also proposed playing Bryan Mbeumo in a wing-back role. The owner is eager for United to adopt analytics and metrics. According to ESPN, during a leadership summit early in his minority ownership, he declared that United’s style to football “will be determined by this group”.

Ultimately, Sir Jim is a specialist in this technical football matters, drawing from his background in industry and sailing. Most importantly he remains immensely wealthy, and as we all know, the rich are the best of us: more insightful, more wise, strategically brilliant, fundamentally better. Who else could one trust to manage a strategic plan of austerity, the building of a new stadium that appears a lot like someone’s leftover knitting, the signing of a new striker?

The Modern Football Order: Executives Over Managers

This is a trend we are increasingly seeing at the elite levels football. Historically, teams mistakenly delegated major sporting choices to subordinate staff like managers, talent spotters – players themselves. Maybe previously possible for a young, visionary coach with ideas and energy to join a club and implement their plan through to completion. Yet how many businesses have these guys set up? What number of large-scale layoffs have they overseen? Better by far to invest the real power where it rightly belongs: the executive class, the casually dressed executives, the individuals with impressive LinkedIn profiles. It is wiser to determine the strategy in the boardroom and hire a coach who can tailor their methods to suit. If coaches were formerly chefs, they have become more like Deliveroo drivers: not really responsible for the food, but still finally accountable should it be delivered cold or leaks out of the box.

Nowadays, their job has become less about defining the vision and more about marketing it: the front-facing representative on the front desk, the public face for a club they can do little to change. Enzo Maresca takes a squad of very young players into Europe and wins two medium-sized trophies, and essentially gets sacked for talking. A manager at Celtic finds his standing damaged whereas the people who hired him live to blunder indefinitely.

The Neoliberal Football: Responsibility Only for the Few

And perhaps in a small way this is simply neoliberalism at work: the elevation of a gilded elite who can never be wrong, whose choices are always sacrosanct, whose mistakes can invariably be sacked away without explanation. Appoint the system coach only to dismiss them for playing excessively that system. Hire the project manager and then bin them for requiring excessive time. And above all be grateful; for your modest increases in ticket costs, for your new summer signings, for the reality that the grownups – regardless of their expertise – are in charge.