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Transpired he endured losing against lower-league opposition. He weathered an important continental showpiece against a particularly poor Tottenham teams in living memory. He withstood losing at home against West Ham and Wolves, a lowly league position, an unwavering system, undermining the team's most promising homegrown talent, the 32% win rate, calling the squad the worst the club has ever seen. But there was one adversary with whom Ruben Amorim was not permitted to tango. If you challenge Jason Wilcox, and you best not miss.

Unfortunately, similar to numerous Premiership right-back during Blackburn Rovers' title-winning 1994-95 season, Amorim took on the executive and seems to have failed. Even the most distracted of readers can see the paradoxical situation: a manager who frequently berated at his players for losing individual battles crumbling in the face of the white heat and animal charisma of one of England's top division's most feared football executives.

And frankly, this whole painful saga appears to portray the director in a whole new light. Perhaps it might have been tempting, based on his brief stint of experience with the Saints, to view Jason Wilcox as little more than a functionary in the United exoskeleton: a man whose appointment was due as much to his close relationship with his former boss Omar Berrada rather than any demonstrable skill. How wrong everyone was. In brilliantly outsmarting United’s feted head coach, just as he bested the unfortunate Dan Ashworth before him, Jason Wilcox has demonstrated to be among football's strategic masterminds: a tactical intellect of which the club's competitors will now be rightly wary.

A Tactical Conflict Over Formation 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 originally, played a key role in attempting to convince Amorim to ditch his beloved 3-4-3. Naturally, these pleas faced pushback. However, such directives carry more weight when issued by a man of a man the unimpeachable soccer background he possesses, a veteran of international appearances and a role in a championship team decades past.

Perhaps in time he might agree to outline his thought processes to the rest of us. Perhaps at some point questions may arise why Amorim is departing with a full payout, without any compensation reduction clause in place. The director seldom speaks publicly, for excellent reasons. The true intellectuals in football – men like him – function at a level beyond our own prosaic understanding. Were he to speak, probably all we would hear would be high-frequency signals and complex calculations. Desiring an explanation is not quite equivalent to being prepared to comprehend it.

The Supreme Authority In Command

Naturally, by focusing our attention on Jason Wilcox we are obscuring the true genius behind the club's current leadership. The director is, in reality, simply carrying out the directives of his ultimate line manager the billionaire owner, who privately has made very clear his preference for a back four. According to reports, the owner has also suggested playing Bryan Mbeumo as a right wing-back. Ratcliffe is keen for the club to adopt analytics and analytics. According to ESPN, during a leadership summit early in his investment, he announced that the team's approach of play “will be decided by this group”.

Ultimately, Sir Jim is an expert in these intricate football matters, leveraging his previous experience in petrochemicals and sailing. Most importantly he is immensely wealthy, and it is known, the rich are superior: more perceptive, more wise, more tactically astute, fundamentally superior. Who else could one trust to oversee a strategic plan of austerity, the building of a new stadium that appears a lot like an abstract design, the signing of a new striker?

A Modern Soccer Order: Directors Above Coaches

This represents a shift that is becoming prevalent at the elite levels of the game. Historically, clubs foolishly delegated big footballing decisions to low-level employees such as coaches, talent spotters – even footballers. Maybe previously feasible for an up-and-coming, visionary coach with ideas and energy to go into an organization and implement their plan through to completion. But how many companies have these guys established? How many large-scale layoffs have they managed? Better by far to place the real power where it rightly belongs: the leadership tier, the open-necked shirt brigade, the guys with the jaw-dropping professional resumes. It is wiser to determine the strategy in the boardroom and hire someone who will adapt their methods accordingly. If coaches were once chefs, they are now more like Deliveroo drivers: not really creating the product, yet finally accountable should it be delivered cold or fails to meet standards.

Nowadays, their job has become not about crafting the philosophy and more about selling it: the front-facing representative on the front desk, the public face of an organisation they can do little to influence. A coach at Chelsea leads a team of very young players into Europe and wins two medium-sized trophies, and essentially is dismissed for speaking out. A manager at Celtic sees his reputation ruined while those individuals who appointed him continue to make errors indefinitely.

The Neoliberal Football: Accountability Only for the Coaches

And possibly on some microcosmic level this represents neoliberalism in action: the elevation of a gilded elite who can never be wrong, whose decisions are always sacrosanct, whose errors can invariably be sacked away without justification. Appoint the 3-4-3 coach only to fire them for using too much that system. Bring in the process guy and then discard him for taking too long. And above all be grateful; for the incremental increases in ticket costs, for your new summer signings, for the reality that the grownups – regardless of their expertise – are in charge.