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Tbecame clear he was able to withstand defeat by Grimsby. Survive losing a crucial European final versus a particularly poor Spurs sides in living memory. He could survive losing at home against domestic rivals, a lowly league position, his rigid approach, undermining the team's most promising academy products, the 32% win rate, calling the squad the poorest the club has ever seen. But there was a single opponent with whom the Portuguese coach was not permitted to engage. You come at Jason Wilcox, you had better succeed.

Regrettably, similar to numerous Premiership right-back in Blackburn’s title-winning 1994-95 season, the coach came at the executive and seems to have failed. The most distracted of readers will notice the irony here: a coach who frequently berated at his players for losing one-on-one duels crumbling in the face of the white heat and formidable presence of a the Premier League’s most intimidating football executives.

And frankly, this entire painful saga seems to paint the director in a whole new light. Perhaps it might have been tempting, given his brief stint of experience with the Saints, to view him as merely a drudge in the United exoskeleton: an individual who owed his position as much to his friendship with his former boss a fellow executive as any verifiable talent. How mistaken everyone was. By masterfully outmanoeuvring the club's celebrated head coach, just as he bested the unfortunate a previous executive before him, Jason Wilcox has proved himself as one of the sport’s strategic masterminds: a tactical intellect of which United’s competitors are now justifiably concerned.

The Tactical Conflict Over Formation & Philosophy

To illustrate, this was the director , after being involved in the leadership that appointed the rigid 3-4-3 advocate Amorim in the first place, played a key role in attempting to convince Amorim to abandon his beloved 3-4-3. Naturally, these entreaties were resisted. However, these judgements carry more weight when issued from the mouth of a man the unimpeachable soccer background he possesses, holder of three England caps and a role in a championship team from 31 years ago.

Perhaps in time he might agree to explain his thought processes publicly. Maybe one day questions may arise regarding why the coach is walking away with a full payout, with no penalty clause activated. The director seldom speaks publicly, and with very good reason. The real thinkers in football – individuals such as Jason Wilcox – simply operate on a plane exceeding our prosaic understanding. If he ever did speak, most likely all we would hear is a series of high-frequency signals and complex calculations. Wanting is not quite the same as being prepared to comprehend it.

An Supreme Authority Behind the Throne

But of course, in training our focus on Jason Wilcox we are obscuring the true genius behind the club's current leadership. The director is, in reality, merely executing the commands of his ultimate line manager Sir Jim Ratcliffe, who in private has made very clear his desire for a four-man defense. It is reported, the owner has also proposed playing Bryan Mbeumo as a right wing-back. Ratcliffe is keen for the club to embrace data science and analytics. According to ESPN, during a leadership summit soon after his minority ownership, he announced that United’s style to football “will be determined in this room”.

After all, Ratcliffe is a specialist in this technical footballing stuff, leveraging his background in industry and sailing. Above all he is incredibly rich, and as we all know, the rich are the best of us: more insightful, more wise, more tactically astute, simply superior. Whom else would you trust to oversee a strategic plan of austerity, the building of a modern arena that appears a lot like an abstract design, the signing of a new striker?

A Modern Soccer Hierarchy: Directors Over Managers

This is a trend we are increasingly seeing in top-tier football. Historically, clubs foolishly delegated big footballing decisions to low-level employees like managers, talent spotters – even footballers. Maybe previously possible for a young, visionary coach with ideas and drive to go into an organization and see their vision supported to fruition. Yet how many businesses have such individuals set up? How many mass redundancies have they managed? Better by far to place the real power where it rightly belongs: the executive class, the open-necked shirt brigade, the individuals with impressive LinkedIn profiles. Better by far to determine the strategy in the boardroom and hire someone who will adapt their methods to suit. If managers were formerly chefs, they are now more like delivery personnel: not really responsible for the food, but still finally accountable if it arrives poorly or fails to meet standards.

In the meantime, a coach's role is increasingly less about crafting the philosophy and more about marketing it: the front-facing representative of the operation, the visible figurehead of an organisation they have minimal power to change. A coach at Chelsea takes a squad of very young players into Europe and wins two medium-sized trophies, and essentially gets sacked for talking. Wilfried Nancy sees his reputation ruined whereas those individuals who appointed him continue to make errors another day.

A Neoliberal Game: Accountability Only for the Coaches

And possibly in a small way this represents corporate governance at work: the elevation of a gilded overclass who can never be wrong, whose decisions remain sacrosanct, whose errors can invariably be resolved by sacking without justification. Appoint the 3-4-3 coach and then dismiss them for using too much 3-4-3. Hire the project manager and then bin him for requiring excessive time. And above all show gratitude; for the incremental increases in ticket costs, for the latest player acquisitions, for the fact that the grownups – however well qualified – remain in control.