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Tbecame clear Ruben Amorim endured a loss to lower-league opposition. He weathered a decisive continental showpiece versus a particularly poor Spurs sides in living memory. He could survive losing at home against West Ham and Wolves, finishing 15th, his rigid approach, laying waste to the team's best homegrown talent, the 32% win rate, labeling his team the worst the club has ever seen. But there was one adversary against whom Ruben Amorim would not be allowed to tango. You come at Jason Wilcox, you had better succeed.

Regrettably, similar to numerous Premiership defender during Blackburn Rovers' championship 1994-95 season, the coach came at the executive and seems to have failed. Even the most distracted of readers will notice the paradoxical situation: a coach who frequently berated at his players for failing in individual battles crumbling in the face of the intense pressure and formidable presence of a England's top division's most feared sporting directors.

In truth, this whole painful saga appears to portray Jason Wilcox in a different perspective. It may have been tempting, given his brief stint in a similar role with the Saints, to view him as little more than a functionary within the club's structure: a man who owed his position as much to his friendship with his former boss a fellow executive rather than any demonstrable skill. How mistaken everyone was. In brilliantly outsmarting the club's celebrated manager, as he outmanoeuvred the unfortunate Dan Ashworth earlier, he has proved himself as one of the sport’s strategic masterminds: a tactical intellect that United’s mid-table rivals are now justifiably concerned.

A Tactical Conflict Regarding System & Ideology

For example, it was the director , after having been part of the leadership that appointed the 3-4-3 fundamentalist Amorim originally, was instrumental in attempting to convince Amorim to abandon his favored 3-4-3. Naturally, these pleas met a certain resistance. However, such directives hold greater authority when delivered by a man of a man the unimpeachable football pedigree of Jason Wilcox, holder of three England caps and a contributor to a championship team decades past.

Perhaps in time Jason Wilcox may be persuaded to explain his reasoning to the rest of us. Maybe one day questions may arise regarding why the coach is walking away with a full payout, without any compensation reduction clause in place. The director speaks rarely in public, for excellent reasons. The true intellectuals of this sport – individuals such as him – function at a level beyond our own prosaic understanding. Were he to speak, probably all we would hear is a series of ultrasonic blips and complex calculations. Desiring an explanation is not quite equivalent to being ready to comprehend it.

An Ultimate Authority Behind the Throne

Naturally, by focusing our attention on Jason Wilcox we overlook the true genius behind the club's current leadership. The director is, after all, simply carrying out the commands of his superior the billionaire owner, who in private has emphasized his preference 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 data science and analytics. Per reports, in an executive meeting early in his investment, he announced that the team's approach to football “will be determined by this group”.

After all, Ratcliffe is an expert in this technical football matters, leveraging his background in industry and sailing. Most importantly he is incredibly rich, and it is known, the wealthy are the best of us: more insightful, more wise, strategically brilliant, fundamentally better. Who else would you trust to oversee an enlightened programme of austerity, the construction of a new stadium that looks a lot like someone’s leftover knitting, the acquisition of a new striker?

A New Football Order: Directors Above Managers

This represents a shift that is becoming prevalent at the elite levels football. Historically, clubs foolishly entrusted major sporting choices to subordinate staff like managers, scouts – players themselves. Maybe previously possible for an up-and-coming, visionary coach with ideas and drive to join a club and implement their plan through to completion. Yet how many businesses have these guys set up? How many large-scale layoffs have they managed? Far preferable to place the real power where it rightly belongs: the executive class, the open-necked shirt brigade, the guys with the jaw-dropping LinkedIn profiles. Better by far to determine the tactics by the directors and hire someone who will adapt their offering accordingly. If coaches were once chefs, they are now more like delivery personnel: not creating the product, yet ultimately answerable if it arrives poorly or leaks out of the box.

In the meantime, a coach's role has become 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 leads a team of literal children into the Champions League and wins two medium-sized trophies, and effectively is dismissed for talking. A manager at Celtic finds his reputation ruined while those individuals who appointed him live to blunder another day.

A Neoliberal Game: Responsibility for the Few

And possibly in a small way this is simply corporate governance in action: the elevation of a gilded overclass who can never be wrong, whose choices remain sacrosanct, whose mistakes can invariably be resolved by sacking without explanation. Hire the system coach only to fire him for using excessively that system. Bring in the process guy and then discard him for requiring excessive time. And most importantly be grateful; for the incremental increases in ticket costs, for the latest player acquisitions, for the fact that the adults – regardless of their expertise – remain in control.