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Itranspired the manager endured a loss to lower-league opposition. He weathered a decisive European final against one of the worst Tottenham teams for many years. He withstood losing at home against West Ham and Wolves, a lowly league position, the tactical inflexibility, squandering the team's most promising academy products, the 32% win rate, labeling the squad the worst the club has ever seen. Yet, there existed one adversary against whom the Portuguese coach was not permitted to engage. If you challenge Jason Wilcox, and you best not miss.

Unfortunately, like many a top-flight defender in Blackburn’s title-winning 1994-95 season, the coach took on the executive and appears to have failed. Even the most casual observer can see the irony here: a coach who often railed his squad for losing one-on-one duels succumbing in the face of the white heat and formidable presence of a the Premier League’s most intimidating football executives.

In truth, this whole painful saga appears to portray the director in a different perspective. Perhaps it might have been easy, based on his brief stint in a similar role at Southampton, to regard him as little more than a functionary in the United exoskeleton: a man who owed his position largely to his friendship with his former boss a fellow executive rather than any demonstrable skill. How wrong we all were. In brilliantly outsmarting United’s feted head coach, just as he bested the hapless Dan Ashworth earlier, he has demonstrated as one of football's strategic masterminds: a strategic mind that the club's mid-table rivals will now be justifiably concerned.

The Strategic Conflict Regarding Formation & Ideology

To illustrate, it was Jason Wilcox , after having been part of the hierarchy that appointed the rigid 3-4-3 advocate Amorim originally, played a key role in trying to persuade him to abandon his favored formation. Unsurprisingly, these pleas faced pushback. But perhaps these judgements carry more weight when delivered by a man of a man the unimpeachable soccer background he possesses, a veteran of three England caps and a role in a title-winning side decades past.

Maybe eventually Jason Wilcox may be persuaded to outline his thought processes publicly. Maybe one day he might be asked regarding why the coach is departing with full compensation, with no penalty clause in place. But Jason Wilcox speaks rarely in public, for excellent reasons. The real thinkers in football – individuals such as him – simply operate at a level beyond our own prosaic understanding. Were he to speak, probably all we would hear is a series of high-frequency signals and four-dimensional whirring. Wanting is not the same as being prepared to receive.

An Supreme Power Behind the Throne

But of course, in training our focus on the sporting director we overlook the real power behind the modern United throne. The director is, after all, merely executing the directives of his ultimate line manager Sir Jim Ratcliffe, who privately has made very clear his desire for a back four. According to reports, the owner has also proposed deploying the forward as a right wing-back. The owner is eager for the club to adopt data science and metrics. According to ESPN, during a leadership summit soon after his investment, he declared that the team's approach to football “shall be determined by this group”.

Ultimately, Ratcliffe is a specialist in this technical football matters, leveraging his background in industry and sailing. Above all he remains incredibly rich, and it is known, the rich are the best of us: more perceptive, more wise, more tactically astute, fundamentally better. Who else could one trust to oversee an enlightened programme of cost-cutting, the construction of a modern arena that looks a lot like someone’s leftover knitting, the acquisition of Benjamin Sesko?

A Modern Football Order: Directors Above Coaches

This represents a shift that is becoming prevalent at the elite levels of the game. For decades, clubs foolishly delegated major sporting choices to subordinate staff like managers, talent spotters – even footballers. Maybe previously possible for a young, innovative manager with a philosophy and drive to go into an organization and implement their plan supported to fruition. But how many companies have these guys set up? How many mass redundancies have they managed? Far preferable to place genuine authority where it rightly belongs: the leadership tier, the casually dressed executives, the individuals with impressive professional resumes. It is wiser to decide the strategy in the boardroom and hire someone who can tailor their offering accordingly. If coaches were once chefs, they have become more like delivery personnel: not responsible for the product, yet finally accountable if it arrives poorly or fails of the box.

In the meantime, a coach's role is increasingly not about defining the vision and more about selling it: the front-facing representative of the operation, the public face for a club they can do little to influence. A coach at Chelsea takes a squad of literal children into Europe and secures domestic cups, and effectively gets sacked for talking. A manager at Celtic finds his reputation ruined whereas the people who hired him live to blunder another day.

A Modern Corporate Game: Responsibility Only for the Few

And perhaps on some microcosmic level this is simply neoliberalism at work: the rise of a gilded elite who can never be wrong, whose choices remain untouchable, whose mistakes can invariably be resolved by sacking without justification. Hire the system coach and then fire him for using excessively that system. Bring in the project manager and later bin them for taking excessive time. And above all show gratitude; for the incremental increases in ticket costs, for the latest player acquisitions, for the fact that the grownups – regardless of their expertise – are in charge.