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Transpired he was able to withstand a loss to lower-league opposition. He weathered losing a crucial European final versus one of the worst Tottenham teams in living memory. He could survive losing at home against West Ham and Wolves, a lowly league position, an unwavering system, squandering some of the club’s best homegrown talent, a poor winning percentage, calling his team the worst in Manchester United history. But there was a single opponent with whom the Portuguese coach was not permitted to tango. If you challenge the sporting director, you had better succeed.

Regrettably, similar to numerous Premiership defender in Blackburn’s title-winning 1994-95 season, the coach came at the executive and seems to have missed. The most casual observer will notice the irony here: a manager who often railed his squad for failing in one-on-one duels crumbling when confronted by the white heat and animal charisma of one of 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 tempting, based on his nine months of experience with the Saints, to view him as little more than a functionary in the United exoskeleton: a man who owed his position largely to his close relationship with his former boss a fellow executive as any verifiable talent. How mistaken we all were. By masterfully outsmarting the club's celebrated manager, just as he bested the hapless Dan Ashworth earlier, Jason Wilcox has proved himself to be among football's true generals: a tactical intellect that United’s mid-table rivals are now justifiably concerned.

A Tactical Conflict Over System and Philosophy

To illustrate, this was the director who having been part of the hierarchy that hired the rigid 3-4-3 advocate Amorim in the first place, played a key role in attempting to convince him to abandon his favored 3-4-3. Naturally, these entreaties were resisted. But perhaps such directives hold greater authority when delivered by a man 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 might agree to outline his reasoning publicly. Maybe one day he might be asked regarding why the coach is walking away with full compensation, with no penalty clause in place. The director speaks rarely in public, for excellent reasons. The true intellectuals in football – individuals such as Jason Wilcox – simply operate at a level exceeding our prosaic understanding. If he ever did speak, most likely all we would hear would be ultrasonic blips and complex calculations. Wanting is not equivalent to being prepared to receive.

The Ultimate Power Behind Command

Naturally, in training our focus on Jason Wilcox we are obscuring the real power behind the modern United throne. Jason Wilcox is, after all, merely executing the directives of his ultimate line manager the billionaire owner, who in private has made very clear his preference for a back four. It is reported, Ratcliffe has also proposed playing Bryan Mbeumo as a right wing-back. 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 decided in this room”.

After all, Sir Jim is a specialist in this technical football matters, leveraging his previous experience in industry and yachting. Above all he remains immensely wealthy, and it is known, the wealthy are the best of us: more insightful, sagacious, strategically brilliant, simply superior. Whom else could one trust to oversee a strategic plan of austerity, the construction of a new stadium that appears similar to an abstract design, the acquisition of Benjamin Sesko?

A New Soccer Hierarchy: Directors Above Coaches

This represents a shift that is becoming prevalent at the elite levels of the game. For decades, clubs foolishly entrusted big footballing decisions to low-level employees like managers, talent spotters – even footballers. Perhaps it was once possible for an up-and-coming, innovative manager with ideas and drive to go into an organization and implement their plan through to completion. But how many companies have such individuals set up? How many large-scale layoffs have they managed? Better by far to invest genuine authority where it belongs: the executive class, the open-necked shirt brigade, the guys with the jaw-dropping LinkedIn profiles. Better by far to decide the tactics in the boardroom and hire a coach who can tailor their offering accordingly. If coaches were formerly chefs, they are now more akin to delivery personnel: not really creating the product, but still ultimately answerable should it be delivered poorly or fails to meet standards.

Nowadays, a coach's role is increasingly not about defining the vision and more about marketing it: the receptionist on the front desk, the public face of an organisation they have minimal power to change. 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 while the people who hired him live to blunder another day.

A Neoliberal Football: Accountability Only for the Few

And perhaps in a small way this represents neoliberalism at work: the rise of a gilded elite who are infallible, whose decisions remain sacrosanct, whose errors can always be resolved by sacking without explanation. Hire the 3-4-3 coach only to fire them for using too much that system. Bring in the project manager and later discard him for taking too long. And above all show gratitude; for the incremental increases in ticket costs, for the latest player acquisitions, for the reality that the grownups – however well qualified – are in charge.