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Itranspired the manager could survive losing against lower-league opposition. He weathered a decisive continental showpiece against one of the worst Tottenham teams in living memory. He could survive home defeats to West Ham and Wolves, finishing 15th, the tactical inflexibility, laying waste to the team'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 dance. If you challenge the sporting director, you had better succeed.

Regrettably, like many a top-flight right-back in Blackburn’s title-winning 1994-95 season, Amorim came at the executive and appears to have missed. Even the most distracted of readers can see the irony here: a coach who frequently berated his squad for failing in one-on-one duels succumbing when confronted by the white heat and animal charisma of one of England's top division's most feared sporting directors.

In truth, this entire painful saga seems to paint Jason Wilcox in a whole new light. Perhaps it might have been easy, given his nine months of experience at Southampton, to view Jason Wilcox as little more than a functionary within the club's structure: an individual who owed his position largely to his friendship with his former boss a fellow executive rather than any demonstrable skill. How wrong everyone was. In brilliantly outmanoeuvring United’s feted head coach, as he outmanoeuvred the hapless a previous executive before him, Jason Wilcox has demonstrated as one of football's strategic masterminds: a strategic mind of which United’s competitors will now be justifiably concerned.

The Strategic Clash Over Formation & Ideology

To illustrate, this was Jason Wilcox who having been part of the leadership that hired the rigid 3-4-3 advocate the coach in the first place, was instrumental in trying to persuade Amorim to ditch his beloved 3-4-3. Naturally, these entreaties met a certain resistance. However, these judgements hold greater authority when delivered by a man of a man the unimpeachable soccer background he possesses, a veteran of three England caps and a role in a championship team from 31 years ago.

Maybe eventually Jason Wilcox might agree to explain his reasoning to the rest of us. Perhaps at some point he might be asked why Amorim is walking away with full compensation, with no compensation reduction clause activated. But Jason Wilcox speaks rarely publicly, for excellent reasons. The true intellectuals of this sport – individuals such as Jason Wilcox – function on a plane beyond our own prosaic understanding. If he ever did speak, most likely all we would hear would be high-frequency signals and complex calculations. Wanting is not the same as being prepared to comprehend it.

An Ultimate Authority In Command

Naturally, in training our focus on the sporting director we are obscuring the real power behind the modern United throne. Jason Wilcox is, in reality, merely executing the commands of his ultimate line manager Sir Jim Ratcliffe, who privately has emphasized 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 adopt data science and analytics. Per reports, in an executive meeting soon after his minority ownership, he announced that United’s style to football “will be decided in this room”.

After all, Sir Jim is an expert in these intricate football matters, drawing from his previous experience in industry and sailing. Most importantly he is incredibly rich, and as we all know, the rich are the best of us: more insightful, more wise, strategically brilliant, fundamentally superior. Whom else could one trust to oversee a strategic plan of cost-cutting, the building of a modern arena that looks a lot like an abstract design, the signing of a new striker?

A New Soccer Order: Directors Above Managers

This is a trend that is becoming prevalent in top-tier football. For decades, teams mistakenly delegated big footballing decisions to subordinate staff like managers, scouts – even footballers. Perhaps it was once possible for a young, innovative manager with ideas and energy to join a club and implement their plan supported to fruition. Yet how many businesses have these guys set up? What number of mass redundancies have they managed? Better by far to place the real power where it belongs: the executive class, the open-necked shirt brigade, the individuals with the jaw-dropping LinkedIn profiles. Better by far to decide the strategy by the directors and appoint a coach who will adapt their methods accordingly. If coaches were formerly chefs, they are now more akin to delivery personnel: not creating the product, yet ultimately answerable should it be delivered poorly or fails of the box.

Nowadays, a coach's role has become not about crafting the philosophy and more about marketing it: the front-facing representative on the front desk, the public face for a club they can do little to change. Enzo Maresca leads a team of literal children into the Champions League and wins two medium-sized trophies, and effectively gets sacked for talking. Wilfried Nancy sees his reputation ruined whereas the people who appointed him live to blunder another day.

The Modern Corporate Game: Accountability Only for the Coaches

And perhaps on some microcosmic level this is simply 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 explanation. Appoint the 3-4-3 coach and then dismiss him for playing excessively that system. Hire the process guy and later bin them for taking excessive time. And above all show gratitude; for your modest season ticket price rises, for the latest player acquisitions, for the fact that the adults – regardless of their expertise – are in charge.