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Itranspired Ruben Amorim endured a loss to lower-league opposition. Survive an important continental showpiece against a particularly poor Spurs sides for many years. He could survive losing at home to domestic rivals, finishing 15th, an unwavering system, squandering the team's best homegrown talent, a poor winning percentage, labeling the squad the worst in Manchester United history. 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, like many a Premiership defender during Blackburn Rovers' championship campaign, the coach came at Jason Wilcox and appears to have missed. The most casual observer will notice the paradoxical situation: a coach who often railed his squad for failing in individual battles succumbing when confronted by the white heat and animal charisma of a the Premier League’s most intimidating football executives.

In truth, this whole bruising episode seems to paint the director in a different perspective. It may have been easy, given his nine months in a similar role at Southampton, to view Jason Wilcox as little more than a functionary in the United exoskeleton: an individual whose appointment was due largely to his close relationship with ex-colleague Omar Berrada as any verifiable talent. How wrong everyone was. In brilliantly outmanoeuvring United’s feted manager, just as he bested the hapless a previous executive earlier, he has demonstrated to be among the sport’s true generals: a strategic mind that the club's mid-table rivals are now rightly wary.

A Strategic Clash Regarding System & Ideology

For example, this was the director who being involved in the leadership that hired the 3-4-3 fundamentalist Amorim originally, was instrumental in attempting to convince Amorim to ditch his beloved formation. Unsurprisingly, these pleas met a certain resistance. But perhaps these judgements carry more weight when issued by a man with the unimpeachable football pedigree of Jason Wilcox, holder of international appearances and a role in a championship team decades past.

Maybe eventually he might agree to explain his reasoning to the rest of us. Perhaps at some point he might be asked regarding why the coach is walking away with a full payout, without any compensation reduction clause activated. The director speaks rarely in public, for excellent reasons. The true intellectuals in football – individuals such as him – simply operate at a level beyond our own prosaic understanding. If he ever did speak, probably we would perceive is a series of ultrasonic blips and complex calculations. Wanting is not quite equivalent to being ready to comprehend it.

The Supreme Power Behind Command

Naturally, in training our focus on Jason Wilcox we overlook the true genius behind the club's current leadership. Jason Wilcox is, in reality, merely executing the directives of his ultimate line manager Sir Jim Ratcliffe, who in private has made very clear his preference for a four-man defense. According to reports, the owner has also proposed playing Bryan Mbeumo in a wing-back role. Ratcliffe is keen for United to adopt data science and analytics. According to ESPN, during a leadership summit soon after his minority ownership, he announced that United’s style of play “shall be decided by this group”.

After all, Sir Jim is an expert in this technical footballing stuff, drawing from his background in petrochemicals and yachting. Most importantly he is incredibly rich, and as we all know, the wealthy are superior: more insightful, sagacious, more tactically astute, simply superior. Who else could one trust to oversee an enlightened programme of austerity, the building of a modern arena that looks a lot like an abstract design, the signing of a new striker?

A Modern Soccer Hierarchy: Directors Above Coaches

This is a trend we are increasingly seeing in top-tier football. Historically, clubs foolishly entrusted major sporting choices to low-level employees such as coaches, scouts – even footballers. Perhaps it was once feasible for a young, visionary coach with a philosophy and drive to go into a club and implement their plan through to completion. Yet how many businesses have such individuals set up? How many large-scale layoffs have they managed? Better by far to invest the real power where it belongs: the leadership tier, the casually dressed executives, the individuals with impressive LinkedIn profiles. It is wiser to decide the strategy in the boardroom and hire a coach who will adapt their methods to suit. If managers were once chefs, they are now more like delivery personnel: not responsible for the food, but still finally accountable if it arrives cold or fails of the box.

In the meantime, a coach's role has become less about crafting the philosophy and more about selling it: the front-facing representative on the front desk, the public face for a club they can do little to influence. A coach at Chelsea takes a squad of very young players into the Champions League and wins two medium-sized trophies, and effectively is dismissed for talking. Wilfried Nancy finds his standing damaged whereas the people who appointed him continue to make errors another day.

The Modern Corporate Football: Accountability Only for the Coaches

And perhaps on some microcosmic level this represents corporate governance in action: the elevation of a gilded overclass who can never be wrong, whose decisions are always untouchable, whose errors can always be sacked away without justification. Appoint the 3-4-3 coach and then fire them for playing too much 3-4-3. Bring in the project manager and then discard them for requiring too long. And above all be grateful; for the incremental season ticket price rises, for the latest player acquisitions, for the reality that the adults – however well qualified – are in charge.