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Itranspired Ruben Amorim could survive defeat by Grimsby. Survive a decisive continental showpiece versus a particularly poor Spurs sides for many years. He withstood home defeats against West Ham and Wolves, a lowly league position, the tactical inflexibility, squandering the team's best homegrown talent, the 32% win rate, calling the squad the worst in Manchester United history. Yet, there existed one adversary against whom Ruben Amorim would not be allowed to engage. If you challenge the sporting director, and you best not miss.

Regrettably, like many a top-flight defender during Blackburn Rovers' championship campaign, Amorim took on the executive and seems to have failed. The most distracted of readers can see the paradoxical situation: a coach who frequently berated his squad for failing in individual battles crumbling in the face of the white heat and animal charisma of a the Premier League’s most intimidating football executives.

And frankly, this whole bruising episode appears to portray Jason Wilcox in a whole new light. It may have been tempting, given his nine months of experience at Southampton, to view him as merely a functionary within the club's structure: a man whose appointment was due as much to his friendship with ex-colleague a fellow executive as any demonstrable skill. How mistaken we all were. By masterfully outsmarting the club's celebrated head coach, as he outmanoeuvred the hapless Dan Ashworth before him, he has demonstrated to be among the sport’s strategic masterminds: a strategic mind that the club's competitors will now be justifiably concerned.

A Tactical Clash Regarding System & Philosophy

To illustrate, this was the director who having been part of the hierarchy that hired the 3-4-3 fundamentalist Amorim originally, was instrumental in trying to persuade Amorim to ditch his favored formation. Naturally, these pleas faced pushback. However, these judgements carry more weight when delivered from the mouth with the impeccable soccer background of Jason Wilcox, a veteran of international appearances and a role in a championship team decades past.

Perhaps in time he might agree to outline his thought processes publicly. Maybe one day he might be asked why Amorim is departing with full compensation, with no compensation reduction clause in place. But Jason Wilcox seldom speaks in public, for excellent reasons. The real thinkers in football – men like Jason Wilcox – function at a level beyond our own prosaic understanding. Were he to speak, most likely we would perceive would be high-frequency signals and complex calculations. Desiring an explanation is not equivalent to being ready to comprehend it.

The Supreme Power In the Throne

But of course, by focusing our attention on the sporting director we overlook the real power behind the club's current leadership. Jason Wilcox is, in reality, merely executing the directives of his superior the billionaire owner, who in private has emphasized his preference for a four-man defense. It is reported, Ratcliffe has also suggested playing Bryan Mbeumo in a wing-back role. Ratcliffe is keen for United to embrace data science and metrics. According to ESPN, in an executive meeting early in his investment, he declared that the team's approach to football “shall be decided in this room”.

Ultimately, Ratcliffe is a specialist in these intricate football matters, leveraging his background in industry and sailing. Most importantly he is immensely wealthy, and as we all know, the rich are superior: more perceptive, more wise, strategically brilliant, fundamentally superior. Whom else could one trust to oversee an enlightened programme of austerity, the construction of a new stadium that looks a lot like an abstract design, the acquisition of a new striker?

A New Soccer Order: Directors Over Managers

This is a trend we are increasingly seeing at the elite levels football. For decades, teams mistakenly delegated major sporting choices to low-level employees such as coaches, scouts – even footballers. Maybe previously possible for an up-and-coming, innovative manager with ideas and energy to go into an organization and implement their plan supported to fruition. But how many businesses have these guys established? What number of large-scale layoffs have they managed? Far preferable to invest genuine authority where it belongs: the executive class, the casually dressed executives, the guys with the jaw-dropping professional resumes. Better by far to decide the tactics by the directors and appoint someone who will adapt their methods to suit. If managers were once chefs, they are now more like Deliveroo drivers: not responsible for the product, yet ultimately answerable if it arrives poorly or fails of the box.

In the meantime, their job is increasingly less about defining the vision 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. A coach at Chelsea leads a team of literal children into the Champions League and secures two medium-sized trophies, and essentially gets sacked for talking. Wilfried Nancy finds his standing damaged while those individuals who appointed him continue to make errors another day.

A Modern Corporate Game: Accountability for the Coaches

And possibly in a small way this is simply corporate governance at work: the elevation of a privileged elite who can never be wrong, whose choices remain sacrosanct, whose mistakes can invariably be sacked away without explanation. Hire the system coach only to dismiss them for using excessively 3-4-3. Hire the project manager and then discard them for taking too long. And above all show gratitude; for the incremental season ticket price rises, for your new player acquisitions, for the fact that the grownups – however well qualified – remain in control.