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Itbecame clear the manager endured a loss to Grimsby. He weathered an important continental showpiece against one of the worst Spurs sides in living memory. He could survive losing at home to domestic rivals, finishing 15th, the tactical inflexibility, undermining the team's most promising academy products, the 32% win rate, calling his team the poorest in Manchester United history. But there was one adversary against whom the Portuguese coach was not permitted to engage. You come at the sporting director, you had better succeed.

Regrettably, similar to numerous top-flight right-back during Blackburn Rovers' title-winning campaign, Amorim took on the executive and appears to have failed. The most casual observer will notice the paradoxical situation: a manager who often railed his squad for failing in one-on-one duels succumbing when confronted by the white heat and formidable presence of a the Premier League’s most feared football executives.

In truth, this entire bruising episode appears to portray the director in a different perspective. Perhaps it might have been tempting, based on his brief stint in a similar role with the Saints, to view Jason Wilcox as merely a drudge within the club's structure: an individual who owed his position as much to his friendship with his former boss Omar Berrada as any demonstrable skill. How mistaken everyone was. By masterfully outsmarting United’s feted manager, just as he bested the hapless a previous executive earlier, Jason Wilcox has proved himself as one of the sport’s true generals: a tactical intellect of which United’s mid-table rivals are now justifiably concerned.

The Strategic Clash Over System and Ideology

To illustrate, it was Jason Wilcox who being involved in the leadership that appointed the 3-4-3 fundamentalist the coach in the first place, played a key role in attempting to convince him to ditch his favored formation. Unsurprisingly, these pleas met a certain resistance. However, such directives carry more weight when delivered from the mouth with the impeccable football pedigree of Jason Wilcox, holder of three England caps and a contributor to a title-winning side decades past.

Maybe eventually he may be persuaded to explain his thought processes publicly. Maybe one day questions may arise regarding why the coach is departing with a full payout, with no penalty clause activated. But Jason Wilcox speaks rarely publicly, and with very good reason. The real thinkers in football – men like Jason Wilcox – simply operate on a plane beyond our own prosaic understanding. If he ever did speak, probably we would perceive is a series of high-frequency signals and complex calculations. Desiring an explanation is not quite equivalent to being ready to receive.

An Supreme Power Behind Command

But of course, in training our focus on Jason Wilcox we are obscuring the real power behind the club's current leadership. Jason Wilcox is, in reality, simply carrying out the directives of his superior the billionaire owner, who privately has emphasized his preference for a back four. It is reported, the owner has also proposed playing Bryan Mbeumo in a wing-back role. The owner is eager for United to embrace data science and metrics. Per reports, during a leadership summit early in his minority ownership, he declared that United’s style to football “will be decided by this group”.

After all, Sir Jim is an expert in these intricate football matters, leveraging his background in petrochemicals and sailing. Above all he is incredibly rich, and it is known, the rich are the best of us: more insightful, sagacious, strategically brilliant, simply superior. Whom else could one trust to manage an enlightened programme of austerity, the construction of a modern arena that appears similar to someone’s leftover knitting, the acquisition of a new striker?

A Modern Football Order: Executives Above Managers

This is a trend that is becoming prevalent at the elite levels of the game. For decades, teams mistakenly entrusted big footballing decisions to subordinate staff like managers, talent spotters – even footballers. Maybe previously feasible for an up-and-coming, visionary coach with ideas and drive to go into an organization and see their vision supported to fruition. Yet how many companies have these guys set up? What number of large-scale layoffs have they managed? Better by far to place the real power where it belongs: the executive class, the open-necked shirt brigade, the guys with the jaw-dropping professional resumes. Better by far to determine the tactics in the boardroom and appoint someone who can tailor their offering to suit. If coaches were once chefs, they have become more like delivery personnel: not creating the food, yet finally accountable should it be delivered cold or fails to meet standards.

In the meantime, their job is increasingly less about defining the vision and more about selling it: the front-facing representative on the front desk, the public face of an organisation they can do little to influence. A coach at Chelsea takes a squad of very young players into Europe and wins domestic cups, and effectively is dismissed for talking. A manager at Celtic finds his standing damaged whereas those individuals who appointed him live to blunder indefinitely.

The Modern Corporate Game: Accountability Only for the Coaches

And possibly on some microcosmic level this is simply corporate governance at work: the elevation of a privileged overclass who are infallible, whose choices remain untouchable, whose mistakes can invariably be resolved by sacking without explanation. Hire the 3-4-3 coach and then fire him for playing too much 3-4-3. Hire the process guy and then bin them for requiring excessive time. And above all show gratitude; for your modest increases in ticket costs, for your new summer signings, for the reality that the adults – however well qualified – remain in control.