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Itranspired the manager was able to withstand losing against lower-league opposition. Survive an important European final versus one of the worst Tottenham teams for many years. He withstood home defeats to domestic rivals, finishing 15th, his rigid approach, squandering the team's best academy products, the 32% win rate, calling the squad the worst the club has ever seen. But there was a single opponent against whom Ruben Amorim would not be allowed to tango. If you challenge the sporting director, and you best not miss.

Unfortunately, similar to numerous top-flight right-back in Blackburn’s championship campaign, Amorim took on Jason Wilcox and seems to have missed. The most distracted of readers will notice the paradoxical situation: a coach who often railed his squad for losing individual battles crumbling in the face of the white heat and formidable presence of a England's top division's most intimidating football executives.

In truth, this entire painful saga seems to paint the director in a whole new light. Perhaps it might have been tempting, based on his brief stint of experience with the Saints, to regard him as merely a functionary within the club's structure: a man who owed his position largely to his close relationship with his former boss Omar Berrada rather than any verifiable talent. How mistaken everyone was. By masterfully outsmarting United’s feted head coach, as he outmanoeuvred the hapless Dan Ashworth before him, he has proved himself as one of the sport’s true generals: a strategic mind of which the club's competitors will now be rightly wary.

A Tactical Conflict Regarding System & Ideology

For example, this was Jason Wilcox who having been part of the leadership that appointed the 3-4-3 fundamentalist Amorim in the first place, was instrumental in trying to persuade him to abandon his favored 3-4-3. Unsurprisingly, these pleas faced pushback. But perhaps such directives hold greater authority when delivered from the mouth of a man the unimpeachable soccer background of Jason Wilcox, holder of three England caps and a contributor to a title-winning side decades past.

Perhaps in time he may be persuaded to outline his thought processes publicly. Perhaps at some point he might be asked why Amorim is walking away with a full payout, without any penalty clause in place. But Jason Wilcox seldom speaks publicly, and with very good reason. The true intellectuals of this sport – men like Jason Wilcox – function on a plane beyond our own prosaic understanding. Were he to speak, most likely all we would hear is a series of ultrasonic blips and four-dimensional whirring. Wanting is not the same as being prepared to receive.

The Ultimate Authority Behind Command

Naturally, by focusing our attention on the sporting director we overlook the true genius behind the modern United throne. The director is, in reality, simply carrying out the directives of his ultimate line manager Sir Jim Ratcliffe, who privately has made very clear his desire for a back four. According to reports, the owner has also proposed deploying the forward as a right wing-back. Ratcliffe is keen for United to embrace data science and analytics. Per reports, during a leadership summit soon after his investment, he declared that the team's approach to football “shall be determined in this room”.

After all, Ratcliffe is a specialist in this technical footballing stuff, leveraging his previous experience in petrochemicals and yachting. Above all he is immensely wealthy, and it is known, the rich are the best of us: more perceptive, sagacious, more tactically astute, simply better. Whom else could one trust to manage a strategic plan of cost-cutting, the construction of a new stadium that appears similar to someone’s leftover knitting, the acquisition of a new striker?

The Modern Soccer Hierarchy: Executives Above Coaches

This is a trend that is becoming prevalent in top-tier football. For decades, clubs foolishly entrusted major sporting choices to low-level employees like managers, scouts – even footballers. Maybe previously feasible for an up-and-coming, innovative manager with ideas and energy to join an organization and implement their plan supported to fruition. Yet how many companies have these guys established? How many mass redundancies have they overseen? Far preferable to place the real power where it rightly belongs: the leadership tier, the open-necked shirt brigade, the guys with impressive LinkedIn profiles. Better by far to determine the strategy by the directors and hire someone who will adapt their offering to suit. If managers were formerly chefs, they have become more akin to delivery personnel: not really responsible for the food, yet ultimately answerable if it arrives poorly or fails to meet standards.

Nowadays, a coach's role is increasingly not about crafting the philosophy and more about marketing it: the front-facing representative on the front desk, the public face of an organisation they have minimal power to influence. Enzo Maresca takes a squad of literal children into the Champions League and secures two medium-sized trophies, and effectively is dismissed for talking. A manager at Celtic finds his standing damaged while the people who appointed him live to blunder indefinitely.

The Neoliberal Football: Accountability for the Coaches

And possibly in a small way this is simply neoliberalism in action: the rise of a privileged overclass who can never be wrong, whose decisions are always untouchable, whose mistakes can always be sacked away without explanation. Appoint the 3-4-3 coach only to dismiss him for using too much 3-4-3. Bring in the process guy and later discard him for taking excessive time. And above all be grateful; for your modest season ticket price rises, for the latest player acquisitions, for the fact that the grownups – however well qualified – remain in control.