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Iturns out he endured a loss to Grimsby. He weathered losing a crucial continental showpiece against one of the worst Tottenham teams in living memory. He withstood home defeats to West Ham and Wolves, finishing 15th, his rigid approach, laying waste to some of the club’s best academy products, the 32% win rate, labeling 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. If you challenge Jason Wilcox, and you best not miss.

Unfortunately, similar to numerous top-flight defender during Blackburn Rovers' title-winning 1994-95 season, the coach came at Jason Wilcox and appears to have failed. Even the most distracted of readers can see the irony here: a coach who frequently berated at his players for failing in one-on-one duels succumbing in the face of the white heat and formidable presence of one of the Premier League’s most intimidating football executives.

In truth, this whole bruising episode appears to portray Jason Wilcox in a different perspective. It may have been tempting, based on his nine months in a similar role at Southampton, to regard Jason Wilcox as merely a drudge within the club's structure: a man whose appointment was due largely to his close relationship with his former boss Omar Berrada as any verifiable talent. How wrong everyone was. By masterfully outmanoeuvring the club's celebrated manager, just as he bested the unfortunate a previous executive earlier, he has demonstrated to be among football's strategic masterminds: a strategic mind that the club's competitors are now justifiably concerned.

A Tactical Clash Regarding Formation and Ideology

To illustrate, this was Jason Wilcox who being involved in the leadership that appointed the rigid 3-4-3 advocate the coach originally, played a key role in trying to persuade him to ditch his favored formation. Unsurprisingly, these pleas met a certain resistance. However, such directives hold greater authority when issued from the mouth of a man the unimpeachable football pedigree of Jason Wilcox, a veteran of three England caps and a role in a championship team decades past.

Perhaps in time Jason Wilcox may be persuaded to explain his reasoning publicly. Maybe one day questions may arise why Amorim is walking away with a full payout, without any penalty clause activated. The director speaks rarely publicly, and with very good reason. The true intellectuals of this sport – individuals such as him – function on a plane beyond our own mundane comprehension. If he ever did speak, probably all we would hear is a series of high-frequency signals and complex calculations. Wanting is not the same as being ready to comprehend it.

The Ultimate Power Behind the Throne

But of course, by focusing our attention on Jason Wilcox we are obscuring the true genius behind the modern United throne. Jason Wilcox is, in reality, merely executing the directives of his ultimate superior the billionaire owner, who privately 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 analytics and analytics. According to ESPN, in an executive meeting soon after his minority ownership, he declared that United’s style of play “shall be determined by this group”.

Ultimately, Ratcliffe is an expert in this technical footballing stuff, drawing from his previous experience in industry and yachting. Most importantly he remains incredibly rich, and as we all know, the wealthy are the best of us: more perceptive, more wise, strategically brilliant, fundamentally better. Who else would you trust to manage a strategic plan of cost-cutting, the construction of a new stadium that appears similar to an abstract design, the acquisition of Benjamin Sesko?

A New Football Hierarchy: Executives Above Managers

This is a trend we are increasingly seeing at the elite levels football. Historically, clubs foolishly delegated major sporting choices to low-level employees like managers, scouts – players themselves. Perhaps it was once feasible for a young, innovative manager with a philosophy and drive to join a club and implement their plan through to completion. Yet how many companies have such individuals set up? How many large-scale layoffs have they overseen? Far preferable to invest the real power where it rightly belongs: the leadership tier, the open-necked shirt brigade, the individuals with the jaw-dropping LinkedIn profiles. Better by far to determine the strategy by the directors and appoint someone who will adapt their offering to suit. If coaches were formerly chefs, they have become more akin to delivery personnel: not really responsible for the food, but still ultimately answerable should it be delivered cold or leaks out to meet standards.

In the meantime, a coach's role has become less about defining the vision and more about marketing it: the receptionist of the operation, the public face of an organisation they can do little to change. A coach at Chelsea leads a team of very young players into the Champions League and wins two medium-sized trophies, and essentially is dismissed for speaking out. Wilfried Nancy finds his reputation ruined while those individuals who hired him continue to make errors indefinitely.

A Modern Corporate Football: Responsibility Only for the Few

And perhaps on some microcosmic level this represents neoliberalism in action: the elevation of a privileged elite who can never be wrong, whose decisions remain untouchable, whose mistakes can always be resolved by sacking without explanation. Appoint the 3-4-3 coach and then fire him for playing too much that system. Bring in the process guy and then discard them for taking excessive time. And most importantly be grateful; for the incremental increases in ticket costs, for the latest player acquisitions, for the fact that the grownups – regardless of their expertise – remain in control.