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Iturns out the manager endured defeat by lower-league opposition. He weathered a decisive continental showpiece versus one of the worst Tottenham teams for many years. He could survive losing at home against domestic rivals, a lowly league position, an unwavering system, squandering some of the club’s best academy products, a poor winning percentage, calling his team the worst the club has ever seen. But there was one adversary with whom the Portuguese coach would not be allowed to dance. If you challenge the sporting director, you had better succeed.

Unfortunately, like many a Premiership defender in Blackburn’s title-winning campaign, the coach took on the executive and seems to have failed. The most casual observer can see the irony here: a coach who frequently berated at his players for losing individual battles crumbling when confronted by the white heat and formidable presence of one of England's top division's most intimidating football executives.

In truth, this entire painful saga appears to portray the director in a whole new light. It may have been easy, given his nine months in a similar role at Southampton, to regard him as merely a functionary in the United exoskeleton: an individual who owed his position largely to his close relationship with ex-colleague a fellow executive as any verifiable talent. How wrong everyone was. In brilliantly outmanoeuvring United’s feted head coach, just as he bested the hapless Dan Ashworth earlier, Jason Wilcox has demonstrated as one of the sport’s true generals: a strategic mind that the club's competitors will now be rightly wary.

The Strategic Conflict Regarding Formation and Philosophy

To illustrate, this was the director , after being involved in the leadership that hired the rigid 3-4-3 advocate the coach in the first place, was instrumental in trying to persuade Amorim to ditch his beloved 3-4-3. Unsurprisingly, these entreaties were resisted. But perhaps such directives hold greater authority when delivered by a man with the impeccable football pedigree of Jason Wilcox, a veteran of three England caps and a contributor to a title-winning side decades past.

Perhaps in time Jason Wilcox may be persuaded to outline his thought processes to the rest of us. Maybe one day questions may arise why Amorim is walking away with a full payout, without any penalty clause in place. The director seldom speaks in public, and with very good reason. The true intellectuals of this sport – individuals such as Jason Wilcox – function at a level exceeding our prosaic understanding. Were he to speak, probably all we would hear would be high-frequency signals and complex calculations. Desiring an explanation is not equivalent to being prepared to receive.

The Supreme Authority In Command

Naturally, in training our focus on the sporting director we are obscuring the true genius 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 emphasized his preference for a four-man defense. According to reports, Ratcliffe has also suggested playing Bryan Mbeumo in a wing-back role. The owner is eager for the club to adopt data science and metrics. Per reports, during a leadership summit soon after his minority ownership, he announced that the team's approach to football “shall be determined in this room”.

After all, Sir Jim is a specialist in this technical football matters, leveraging his background in industry and sailing. Most importantly he remains incredibly rich, and it is known, the wealthy are the best of us: more insightful, sagacious, more tactically astute, simply superior. Whom else would you trust to manage an enlightened programme of austerity, the construction of a modern arena that looks similar to someone’s leftover knitting, the acquisition of Benjamin Sesko?

A Modern Football Order: Directors Over Coaches

This is a trend we are increasingly seeing at the elite levels football. For decades, teams mistakenly entrusted big footballing decisions to subordinate staff such as coaches, talent spotters – even footballers. Perhaps it was once feasible for an up-and-coming, visionary coach with a philosophy and drive to join an organization and implement their plan supported to fruition. But how many businesses have these guys established? What number of mass redundancies have they managed? Better by far to place genuine authority where it belongs: the executive class, the casually dressed executives, the guys with impressive LinkedIn profiles. It is wiser to determine the strategy by the directors and hire a coach who can tailor their methods accordingly. If managers were once chefs, they have become more akin to delivery personnel: not creating the product, but still finally accountable should it be delivered poorly or fails of the box.

In the meantime, their job is increasingly not about defining the vision and more about marketing it: the receptionist on the front desk, the visible figurehead of an organisation they can do little to change. Enzo Maresca leads a team of very young players into the Champions League and wins two medium-sized trophies, and effectively gets sacked for talking. A manager at Celtic sees his reputation ruined while the people who appointed him live to blunder indefinitely.

A Neoliberal Game: Accountability for the Coaches

And possibly in a small way this represents corporate governance in action: the rise of a privileged elite who can never be wrong, whose choices remain untouchable, whose mistakes can invariably be sacked away without explanation. Hire the system coach only to fire him for using excessively 3-4-3. Hire the process guy and later bin him for taking too long. And above all show gratitude; for your modest season ticket price rises, for your new summer signings, for the fact that the grownups – regardless of their expertise – are in charge.