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Itbecame clear the manager endured losing against lower-league opposition. Survive an important European final against one of the worst Tottenham teams for many years. He could survive home defeats against West Ham and Wolves, finishing 15th, his rigid approach, laying waste to some of the club’s most promising academy products, the 32% win rate, calling his team the poorest the club has ever seen. Yet, there existed one adversary against whom Ruben Amorim would not be allowed to dance. You come at Jason Wilcox, you had better succeed.

Unfortunately, similar to numerous top-flight defender in Blackburn’s championship 1994-95 season, Amorim took on Jason Wilcox and seems to have missed. The most distracted of readers can see the paradoxical situation: a coach who often railed at his players for failing in individual battles 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 painful saga appears to portray the director in a different perspective. Perhaps it might have been tempting, given his nine months in a similar role at Southampton, to regard him as merely a functionary within the club's structure: a man who owed his position largely to his friendship with ex-colleague a fellow executive as any demonstrable skill. How mistaken we all were. By masterfully outmanoeuvring United’s feted manager, as he outmanoeuvred the hapless a previous executive earlier, he has proved himself to be among the sport’s strategic masterminds: a tactical intellect of which the club's competitors are now rightly wary.

A Tactical Conflict Over Formation & Ideology

To illustrate, it was the director , after being involved in the hierarchy that hired the rigid 3-4-3 advocate the coach in the first place, played a key role in attempting to convince Amorim to ditch his beloved formation. Unsurprisingly, these entreaties were resisted. However, such directives carry more weight when issued from the mouth of a man the impeccable football pedigree he possesses, holder of international appearances and a role in a title-winning side decades past.

Perhaps in time Jason Wilcox may be persuaded to explain his thought processes to the rest of us. Maybe one day questions may arise why Amorim is departing with full compensation, without any compensation reduction clause activated. The director seldom speaks publicly, for excellent reasons. The real thinkers of this sport – individuals such as him – function on a plane beyond our own mundane comprehension. If he ever did speak, most likely we would perceive is a series of ultrasonic blips and complex calculations. Desiring an explanation is not equivalent to being prepared to receive.

An Supreme Authority In Command

But of course, in training our focus on the sporting director we are obscuring the real power behind the modern United throne. The director is, after all, simply carrying out the directives of his superior Sir Jim Ratcliffe, who privately has emphasized his desire for a four-man defense. According to reports, the owner has also proposed deploying the forward in a wing-back role. Ratcliffe is keen for United to embrace analytics and metrics. According to ESPN, in an executive meeting soon after his minority ownership, he announced that the team's approach of play “will be decided in this room”.

After all, Sir Jim is an expert in this technical footballing stuff, drawing from his background in industry and yachting. Above all he remains incredibly rich, and it is known, the rich are superior: more insightful, sagacious, strategically brilliant, fundamentally superior. Who else could one trust to oversee an enlightened programme of austerity, the building of a modern arena that appears a lot like an abstract design, the signing of a new striker?

A Modern Football Hierarchy: Executives Over Coaches

This represents a shift we are increasingly seeing at the elite levels of the game. Historically, clubs foolishly entrusted major sporting choices to low-level employees like managers, talent spotters – players themselves. Perhaps it was once possible for a young, visionary coach with a philosophy and energy to go into an organization and implement their plan through to completion. But how many businesses have these guys set up? What number of mass redundancies have they overseen? Better by far to invest genuine authority where it rightly 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 can tailor their offering to suit. If managers were once chefs, they are now more like delivery personnel: not responsible for the product, but still finally accountable if it arrives poorly or leaks out to meet standards.

Nowadays, their job is increasingly not about crafting the philosophy and more about marketing it: the front-facing representative of the operation, the public face for a club they can do little to change. Enzo Maresca leads a team of very young players into Europe and wins two medium-sized trophies, and effectively is dismissed for speaking out. Wilfried Nancy finds his reputation ruined while the people who hired him live to blunder another day.

A Neoliberal Football: Accountability for the Few

And perhaps in a small way this represents neoliberalism in action: the rise of a privileged overclass who can never be wrong, whose choices remain untouchable, whose mistakes can invariably 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 later bin them for taking too long. And most importantly show gratitude; for the incremental season ticket price rises, for the latest player acquisitions, for the reality that the grownups – regardless of their expertise – are in charge.