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Transpired he was able to withstand a loss to lower-league opposition. He weathered a decisive continental showpiece against one of the worst Tottenham teams in living memory. He withstood home defeats to domestic rivals, finishing 15th, his rigid approach, undermining the team's most promising homegrown talent, the 32% win rate, calling his team the worst in Manchester United history. Yet, there existed one adversary with whom Ruben Amorim was not permitted to tango. If you challenge Jason Wilcox, you had better succeed.

Regrettably, similar to numerous Premiership right-back in Blackburn’s title-winning campaign, Amorim took on the executive and seems to have missed. Even the most distracted of readers can see the paradoxical situation: a coach who frequently berated at his players for losing one-on-one duels crumbling when confronted by the white heat and formidable presence of one of England's top division's most feared football executives.

And frankly, this whole painful saga seems to paint the director in a whole new light. It may have been easy, given his brief stint of experience at Southampton, to regard him as merely a drudge within the club's structure: a man who owed his position as much to his friendship with ex-colleague a fellow executive as any verifiable talent. How wrong we all were. In brilliantly outmanoeuvring United’s feted head coach, just as he bested the hapless a previous executive before him, Jason Wilcox has proved himself as one of football's strategic masterminds: a tactical intellect that United’s mid-table rivals will now be justifiably concerned.

The Tactical Conflict Over Formation & Ideology

To illustrate, this was Jason Wilcox , after being involved in the hierarchy that hired the rigid 3-4-3 advocate Amorim originally, was instrumental in attempting to convince Amorim to ditch his favored formation. Naturally, these entreaties faced pushback. However, these judgements hold greater authority when issued by a man of a man the unimpeachable soccer background of Jason Wilcox, a veteran of international appearances and a contributor to a championship team from 31 years ago.

Maybe eventually he might agree to outline his reasoning to the rest of us. Perhaps at some point questions may arise why Amorim is walking away with full compensation, with no penalty clause in place. The director speaks rarely in public, and with very good reason. The real thinkers in football – men like him – function at a level exceeding our mundane comprehension. Were he to speak, probably all we would hear would be high-frequency signals and four-dimensional whirring. Desiring an explanation is not quite the same as being ready to comprehend it.

An Supreme Authority In Command

But of course, in training our focus on Jason Wilcox we are obscuring the real power behind the modern United throne. Jason Wilcox is, after all, merely executing the directives of his line manager the billionaire owner, who privately has made very clear his desire for a back four. According to reports, Ratcliffe has also suggested deploying the forward as a right wing-back. The owner is eager for the club to adopt analytics and metrics. According to ESPN, in an executive meeting soon after his minority ownership, he declared that the team's approach to football “will be decided by this group”.

After all, Sir Jim is an expert in this technical footballing stuff, leveraging his background in petrochemicals and yachting. Most importantly he is incredibly rich, and it is known, the wealthy are the best of us: more perceptive, more wise, strategically brilliant, simply superior. Whom else could one trust to manage an enlightened programme of cost-cutting, the construction of a new stadium that looks a lot like an abstract design, the acquisition of a new striker?

A New Football Order: Directors Over Managers

This represents a shift we are increasingly seeing at the elite levels of the game. For decades, teams mistakenly entrusted big footballing decisions to low-level employees like managers, talent spotters – even footballers. Perhaps it was once feasible for a young, visionary coach with ideas and drive to go into an organization and implement their plan supported to fruition. Yet how many companies have such individuals established? How many large-scale layoffs have they managed? Better by far to place genuine authority where it belongs: the executive class, the open-necked shirt brigade, the individuals with the jaw-dropping LinkedIn profiles. It is wiser to decide the strategy by the directors and hire a coach who will adapt their methods to suit. If managers were formerly chefs, they have become more akin to Deliveroo drivers: not really responsible for the food, but still finally accountable should it be delivered cold or fails to meet standards.

Nowadays, their job is increasingly not about crafting the philosophy and more about marketing it: the receptionist on the front desk, the visible figurehead of an organisation they have minimal power to influence. A coach at Chelsea takes a squad of very young players into Europe and wins two medium-sized trophies, and essentially is dismissed for speaking out. A manager at Celtic sees his reputation ruined whereas the people who hired him continue to make errors indefinitely.

A Neoliberal Football: Responsibility Only for the Few

And perhaps on some microcosmic level this is simply corporate governance at work: the rise of a gilded elite who can never be wrong, whose choices remain sacrosanct, whose errors can always be resolved by sacking without explanation. Appoint the 3-4-3 coach and then fire them for using excessively 3-4-3. Hire the project manager and later bin him for requiring excessive time. And most importantly be grateful; for the incremental increases in ticket costs, for your new player acquisitions, for the fact that the grownups – however well qualified – are in charge.