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Transpired Ruben Amorim was able to withstand defeat by lower-league opposition. Survive a decisive continental showpiece against a particularly poor Tottenham teams for many years. He withstood losing at home to domestic rivals, finishing 15th, his rigid approach, squandering some of the club’s best homegrown talent, a poor winning percentage, calling the squad the poorest the club has ever seen. Yet, there existed one adversary with whom the Portuguese coach was not permitted to tango. You come at the sporting director, and you best not miss.

Regrettably, similar to numerous top-flight defender in Blackburn’s championship campaign, the coach came at the executive and appears to have failed. The most distracted of readers will notice the paradoxical situation: a manager who often railed at his players for failing in one-on-one duels crumbling when confronted by the white heat and formidable presence of one of England's top division's most feared football executives.

In truth, this entire painful saga seems to paint the director in a different perspective. Perhaps it might have been easy, given his nine months in a similar role with the Saints, to regard him as little more than a drudge within the club's structure: an individual who owed his position as much to his friendship with his former boss Omar Berrada rather than any verifiable talent. How mistaken everyone was. By masterfully outsmarting United’s feted manager, as he outmanoeuvred the unfortunate Dan Ashworth before him, Jason Wilcox has proved himself as one of the sport’s strategic masterminds: a tactical intellect of which United’s mid-table rivals are now justifiably concerned.

A Strategic Conflict Over Formation & Ideology

To illustrate, it was the director , after having been part of the hierarchy that appointed the 3-4-3 fundamentalist the coach in the first place, played a key role in attempting to convince him to ditch his beloved formation. Naturally, these entreaties faced pushback. But perhaps such directives carry more weight when delivered from the mouth with the unimpeachable soccer background of Jason Wilcox, a veteran of three England caps and a role in a championship team decades past.

Maybe eventually Jason Wilcox may be persuaded to outline his thought processes to the rest of us. Perhaps at some point questions may arise regarding why the coach is walking away with full compensation, with no penalty clause in place. But Jason Wilcox seldom speaks in public, for excellent reasons. The true intellectuals in football – individuals such as Jason Wilcox – simply operate at a level beyond our own prosaic understanding. Were he to speak, probably we would perceive is a series of high-frequency signals and four-dimensional whirring. Wanting is not quite equivalent to being prepared to receive.

An Ultimate Authority In Command

Naturally, by focusing our attention on the sporting director we overlook the real power behind the club's current leadership. The director is, in reality, simply carrying out the commands of his ultimate line manager Sir Jim Ratcliffe, who in private has made very clear his desire for a back four. It is reported, Ratcliffe has also suggested playing Bryan Mbeumo as a right wing-back. Ratcliffe is keen for the club to adopt analytics and metrics. According to ESPN, in an executive meeting soon after his minority ownership, he announced that United’s style to football “shall be determined by this group”.

After all, Sir Jim is an expert in these intricate football matters, drawing from his previous experience in petrochemicals and sailing. Most importantly he is incredibly rich, and it is known, the rich are the best of us: more insightful, more wise, strategically brilliant, simply better. Who else could one trust to oversee an enlightened programme of austerity, the construction of a modern arena that appears similar to someone’s leftover knitting, the acquisition of Benjamin Sesko?

A New Football Hierarchy: Directors Over Managers

This is a trend that is becoming prevalent at the elite levels of the game. For decades, clubs foolishly delegated major sporting choices to subordinate staff such as coaches, talent spotters – even footballers. Perhaps it was once feasible for a young, innovative manager with a philosophy and drive to go into an organization and see their vision supported to fruition. But how many companies have such individuals established? How many large-scale layoffs have they overseen? Far preferable to invest the real power where it belongs: the leadership tier, the open-necked shirt brigade, the guys with the jaw-dropping LinkedIn profiles. It is wiser to decide the strategy by the directors and hire a coach who can tailor their methods to suit. If coaches were once chefs, they are now more akin to Deliveroo drivers: not responsible for the product, but still ultimately answerable should it be delivered poorly or leaks out of the box.

Nowadays, their job is increasingly less about defining the vision and more about marketing it: the front-facing representative of the operation, the visible figurehead for a club they can do little to change. Enzo Maresca leads a team of very young players into the Champions League and wins domestic cups, and effectively is dismissed for speaking out. Wilfried Nancy finds his standing damaged while those individuals who appointed him live to blunder another day.

A Modern Corporate Football: Responsibility Only for the Coaches

And possibly on some microcosmic level this is simply corporate governance in action: the elevation of a gilded elite who are infallible, whose choices are always untouchable, whose mistakes can invariably be sacked away without justification. Hire the system coach only to dismiss him for playing too much 3-4-3. Hire the process guy and then discard them for taking too long. And most importantly show gratitude; for the incremental increases in ticket costs, for your new player acquisitions, for the fact that the adults – regardless of their expertise – are in charge.