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Itranspired the manager could survive losing against Grimsby. Survive losing a crucial continental showpiece against one of the worst Tottenham teams in living memory. He withstood home defeats against West Ham and Wolves, a lowly league position, an unwavering system, laying waste to some of the club’s best academy products, the 32% win rate, calling the squad the worst in Manchester United history. But there was one adversary against whom the Portuguese coach would not be allowed to tango. If you challenge the sporting director, you had better succeed.

Unfortunately, like many a Premiership right-back during Blackburn Rovers' title-winning campaign, the coach came at the executive and appears to have missed. Even the most distracted of readers will notice the irony here: a coach who often railed at his players for losing individual battles crumbling in the face of the intense pressure and formidable presence of a England's top division's most feared sporting directors.

In truth, this whole painful saga appears to portray Jason Wilcox in a whole new light. Perhaps it might have been tempting, based on his brief stint of experience at Southampton, to regard him as little more than a drudge within the club's structure: an individual whose appointment was due as much to his close relationship with ex-colleague Omar Berrada as any demonstrable skill. How wrong everyone was. By masterfully outmanoeuvring United’s feted manager, just as he bested the hapless a previous executive before him, Jason Wilcox has demonstrated as one of football's strategic masterminds: a tactical intellect of which United’s mid-table rivals are now rightly wary.

The Tactical Clash Regarding Formation and Ideology

For example, it was the director who being involved in the hierarchy that appointed the rigid 3-4-3 advocate Amorim in the first place, played a key role in attempting to convince Amorim to abandon his favored formation. Naturally, these pleas were resisted. But perhaps such directives carry more weight when delivered from the mouth of a man the impeccable football pedigree of Jason Wilcox, holder of three England caps and a role in a title-winning side decades past.

Perhaps in time Jason Wilcox might agree to explain his reasoning to the rest of us. Perhaps at some point he might be asked regarding why the coach is departing with full compensation, with no compensation reduction clause in place. The director seldom speaks in public, and with very good reason. The real thinkers in football – individuals such as him – function at a level beyond our own prosaic understanding. If he ever did speak, most likely all we would hear is a series of ultrasonic blips and complex calculations. Wanting is not equivalent to being ready to comprehend it.

An Supreme Power Behind the Throne

But of course, in training our focus on the sporting director we are obscuring the real power behind the club's current leadership. The director is, after all, merely executing the commands of his ultimate line manager the billionaire owner, who privately has made very clear his desire for a four-man defense. It is reported, the owner has also suggested deploying the forward in a wing-back role. Ratcliffe is keen for the club to adopt data science and metrics. Per reports, in an executive meeting soon after his investment, he declared that United’s style to football “shall be decided by this group”.

Ultimately, Ratcliffe is an expert in this technical football matters, drawing from his previous experience in industry and yachting. Most importantly he remains incredibly rich, and it is known, the rich are superior: more perceptive, sagacious, more tactically astute, fundamentally better. Who else could one trust to oversee an enlightened programme of austerity, the construction of a modern arena that appears similar to an abstract design, the signing of a new striker?

The Modern Football Order: Directors Over Managers

This is a trend we are increasingly seeing at the elite levels of the game. For decades, teams mistakenly delegated major sporting choices to subordinate staff such as coaches, scouts – even footballers. Perhaps it was once possible for an up-and-coming, visionary coach with ideas and drive to join a club and see their vision through to completion. Yet how many businesses have these guys established? What number of large-scale layoffs have they managed? Better by far to place the real power where it rightly belongs: the leadership tier, the casually dressed executives, the individuals with impressive professional resumes. It is wiser to decide the strategy by the directors and hire a coach who can tailor their methods accordingly. If coaches were formerly chefs, they have become more akin to Deliveroo drivers: not really creating the product, but still ultimately answerable should it be delivered poorly or leaks out to meet standards.

In the meantime, their job is increasingly not about crafting the philosophy and more about marketing it: the front-facing representative on the front desk, the public face for a club they can do little to change. Enzo Maresca takes a squad of literal children into Europe and secures two medium-sized trophies, and essentially gets sacked for speaking out. A manager at Celtic finds his reputation ruined whereas the people who hired him live to blunder another day.

The Modern Corporate Game: Accountability Only for the Coaches

And perhaps in a small way this is simply neoliberalism in action: the rise of a privileged elite who can never be wrong, whose decisions are always untouchable, whose mistakes can invariably be resolved by sacking without explanation. Hire the 3-4-3 coach and then dismiss him for using excessively that system. Bring in the process guy and then bin him for taking too long. And most importantly show gratitude; for the incremental season ticket price rises, for the latest summer signings, for the fact that the adults – however well qualified – are in charge.