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Tbecame clear he was able to withstand defeat by lower-league opposition. He weathered a decisive continental showpiece versus one of the worst Tottenham teams for many years. He could survive home defeats against domestic rivals, finishing 15th, the tactical inflexibility, squandering some of the club’s best homegrown talent, the 32% win rate, labeling the squad the worst in Manchester United history. Yet, there existed one adversary with whom Ruben Amorim was not permitted to dance. You come at Jason Wilcox, you had better succeed.

Unfortunately, like many a top-flight right-back during Blackburn Rovers' title-winning campaign, the coach came at Jason Wilcox and appears to have missed. Even the most casual observer can see the paradoxical situation: a manager who frequently berated at his players for failing in one-on-one duels succumbing in the face of the intense pressure and formidable presence of one of the Premier League’s most feared sporting directors.

And frankly, this whole bruising episode seems to paint Jason Wilcox in a whole new light. Perhaps it might have been tempting, based on his brief stint in a similar role at Southampton, to regard him as merely a functionary within the club's structure: an individual whose appointment was due as much to his close relationship with his former boss a fellow executive as any verifiable talent. How wrong everyone was. In brilliantly outsmarting United’s feted head coach, as he outmanoeuvred the hapless Dan Ashworth before him, he has demonstrated to be among the sport’s true generals: a tactical intellect that the club's mid-table rivals will now be justifiably concerned.

The Tactical Clash Over System & Ideology

For example, this was the director who being involved in the hierarchy that appointed the 3-4-3 fundamentalist the coach in the first place, was instrumental in trying to persuade Amorim to abandon his favored formation. Unsurprisingly, these entreaties met a certain resistance. But perhaps such directives hold greater authority when delivered by a man with the unimpeachable soccer background of Jason Wilcox, a veteran of international appearances and a role in a championship team from 31 years ago.

Maybe eventually he might agree to explain his thought processes publicly. Maybe one day he might be asked regarding why the coach is walking away with full compensation, without any penalty clause in place. But Jason Wilcox speaks rarely in public, for excellent reasons. The real thinkers in football – individuals such as him – simply operate on a plane beyond our own prosaic understanding. If he ever did speak, probably all we would hear is a series of high-frequency signals and complex calculations. Wanting is not equivalent to being prepared to comprehend it.

The Ultimate Power In Command

Naturally, by focusing our attention on the sporting director we are obscuring the real power behind the club's current leadership. Jason Wilcox is, after all, merely executing the directives of his ultimate line manager the billionaire owner, who privately has made very clear his preference for a four-man defense. According to reports, the owner has also proposed playing Bryan Mbeumo in a wing-back role. Ratcliffe is keen for United to adopt analytics and metrics. Per reports, during a leadership summit early in his investment, he declared that the team's approach of play “will be decided by this group”.

After all, Ratcliffe is an expert in this technical football matters, drawing from his background in industry and sailing. Most importantly he remains immensely wealthy, and as we all know, the wealthy are the best of us: more perceptive, more wise, more tactically astute, fundamentally superior. Whom else would you trust to manage an enlightened programme of austerity, the building of a new stadium that appears similar to an abstract design, the acquisition of a new striker?

A Modern Football Order: Directors Over Coaches

This is a trend we are increasingly seeing in top-tier of the game. Historically, clubs foolishly entrusted major sporting choices to subordinate staff such as coaches, talent spotters – even footballers. Perhaps it was once possible for an up-and-coming, innovative manager with a philosophy and drive to join an organization and implement their plan through to completion. Yet how many businesses have these guys set up? What number of mass redundancies have they managed? Far preferable to invest genuine authority where it belongs: the executive class, the casually dressed executives, the individuals with the jaw-dropping professional resumes. Better by far to decide the strategy in the boardroom and appoint a coach who can tailor their offering accordingly. If coaches were once chefs, they are now more like Deliveroo drivers: not responsible for the product, but still ultimately answerable should it be delivered poorly or fails of the box.

Nowadays, a coach's role 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 have minimal power to change. A coach at Chelsea takes a squad of very young players into Europe and secures two medium-sized trophies, and effectively gets sacked for talking. Wilfried Nancy finds his standing damaged while the people who appointed him live to blunder another day.

The Neoliberal Game: Accountability for the Few

And perhaps in a small way this represents neoliberalism at work: the elevation of a gilded elite who can never be wrong, whose decisions are always sacrosanct, whose errors can always be resolved by sacking without justification. Hire the system coach and then dismiss them for playing excessively 3-4-3. Bring in the project manager and later discard them for requiring too long. And most importantly be grateful; for your modest season ticket price rises, for the latest player acquisitions, for the fact that the grownups – however well qualified – remain in control.