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Itranspired he endured losing against lower-league opposition. He weathered an important European final versus a particularly poor Tottenham teams in living memory. He could survive losing at home against domestic rivals, finishing 15th, the tactical inflexibility, laying waste to some of the club’s most promising homegrown talent, a poor winning percentage, labeling his team the worst in Manchester United history. But there was one adversary with whom Ruben Amorim would not be allowed to dance. If you challenge Jason Wilcox, and you best not miss.

Unfortunately, similar to numerous Premiership right-back during Blackburn Rovers' championship 1994-95 season, Amorim came at the executive and seems to have missed. Even the most casual observer can see the paradoxical situation: a coach who frequently berated at his players for failing in individual battles succumbing in the face of the intense pressure and formidable presence of one of the Premier League’s most intimidating football executives.

In truth, this entire painful saga appears to portray Jason Wilcox in a different perspective. It may have been tempting, based on his nine months of experience at Southampton, to view Jason Wilcox as little more than a drudge within the club's structure: an individual who owed his position largely to his close relationship with ex-colleague Omar Berrada as any demonstrable skill. How mistaken we all were. In brilliantly outsmarting United’s feted head coach, just as he bested the hapless Dan Ashworth earlier, he has demonstrated to be among the sport’s true generals: a strategic mind of which United’s mid-table rivals are now justifiably concerned.

The Strategic Clash Over System & Philosophy

To illustrate, it was Jason Wilcox , after being involved in the leadership that hired the 3-4-3 fundamentalist Amorim in the first place, played a key role in trying to persuade Amorim to ditch his favored 3-4-3. Unsurprisingly, these entreaties faced pushback. However, such directives carry more weight when issued by a man of a man the impeccable soccer background of Jason Wilcox, holder of three England caps and a role in a championship team decades past.

Perhaps in time he may be persuaded to explain his reasoning publicly. Maybe one day he might be asked why Amorim is walking away with full compensation, without any compensation reduction clause in place. The director speaks rarely in public, for excellent reasons. The true intellectuals in football – individuals such as Jason Wilcox – simply operate on a plane beyond our own mundane comprehension. If he ever did speak, probably all we would hear is a series of high-frequency signals and complex calculations. Wanting is not quite equivalent to being prepared to comprehend it.

The Supreme Power Behind the Throne

Naturally, by focusing our attention on Jason Wilcox we overlook the real power behind the club's current leadership. The director is, in reality, simply carrying out the commands of his line manager Sir Jim Ratcliffe, who privately has made very clear his desire for a back four. According to reports, the owner has also proposed deploying the forward in a wing-back role. Ratcliffe is keen for the club to embrace data science and analytics. Per reports, in an executive meeting soon after his minority ownership, he announced that United’s style of play “will be decided by this group”.

After all, Sir Jim is an expert in these intricate footballing stuff, leveraging his previous experience in petrochemicals and yachting. Above all he remains immensely wealthy, and as we all know, the wealthy are the best of us: more insightful, more wise, strategically brilliant, fundamentally superior. Whom else could one trust to manage a strategic plan of austerity, the construction of a new stadium that looks a lot like someone’s leftover knitting, the signing of Benjamin Sesko?

A New Soccer Hierarchy: Executives Above Managers

This is a trend that is becoming prevalent at the elite levels football. Historically, clubs foolishly entrusted major sporting choices to low-level employees such as coaches, scouts – players themselves. Maybe previously possible for an up-and-coming, innovative manager with a philosophy and drive to go into a club and implement their plan through to completion. Yet how many companies have such individuals set up? How many mass redundancies have they managed? Far preferable to place the real power where it rightly belongs: the leadership tier, the open-necked shirt brigade, the guys with the jaw-dropping LinkedIn profiles. It is wiser to determine the tactics by the directors and appoint someone who can tailor their offering to suit. If coaches were formerly chefs, they are now more akin to delivery personnel: not creating the food, yet finally accountable if it arrives poorly or leaks out of the box.

In the meantime, a coach's role has become less about crafting the philosophy and more about marketing it: the front-facing representative of the operation, the public face of an organisation they have minimal power to influence. Enzo Maresca takes a squad of literal children into Europe and wins domestic cups, and essentially gets sacked for talking. A manager at Celtic finds his standing damaged while the people who appointed him continue to make errors indefinitely.

The Modern Corporate Football: Responsibility Only for the Few

And possibly in a small way this represents neoliberalism in action: the elevation of a privileged elite who are infallible, whose choices are always sacrosanct, whose errors can always be resolved by sacking without explanation. Hire the system coach and then dismiss him for using too much that system. Hire the process guy and then bin them for requiring too long. And above all show gratitude; for your modest season ticket price rises, for the latest player acquisitions, for the reality that the adults – regardless of their expertise – remain in control.