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Itbecame clear the manager could survive defeat by Grimsby. He weathered losing a crucial continental showpiece against a particularly poor Tottenham teams in living memory. He withstood losing at home against domestic rivals, finishing 15th, the tactical inflexibility, squandering the team's best homegrown talent, the 32% win rate, labeling his team the poorest in Manchester United history. Yet, there existed one adversary against whom the Portuguese coach was not permitted to dance. You come at Jason Wilcox, and you best not miss.

Regrettably, like many a top-flight right-back during Blackburn Rovers' championship 1994-95 season, the coach took on Jason Wilcox and seems to have failed. The most distracted of readers can see the paradoxical situation: a manager who often railed at his players for failing in one-on-one duels crumbling when confronted by the white heat and animal charisma of a the Premier League’s most intimidating sporting directors.

In truth, this whole painful saga seems to paint Jason Wilcox in a different perspective. Perhaps it might have been easy, based on his brief stint of experience at Southampton, to view him as little more than 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 rather than any verifiable talent. How mistaken we all were. In brilliantly outmanoeuvring the club's celebrated manager, as he outmanoeuvred the hapless a previous executive earlier, Jason Wilcox has demonstrated to be among football's strategic masterminds: a tactical intellect of which the club's mid-table rivals will now be rightly wary.

A Strategic Conflict Over System and Ideology

To illustrate, it was Jason Wilcox who being involved in the leadership that appointed the rigid 3-4-3 advocate Amorim originally, was instrumental in trying to persuade Amorim to ditch his beloved 3-4-3. Unsurprisingly, these pleas met a certain resistance. However, such directives hold greater authority when issued by a man with the unimpeachable soccer background of Jason Wilcox, holder of international appearances and a contributor to a title-winning side from 31 years ago.

Maybe eventually Jason Wilcox may be persuaded to outline his thought processes publicly. Perhaps at some point questions may arise regarding why the coach is departing with full compensation, without any compensation reduction clause in place. The director speaks rarely in public, for excellent reasons. The true intellectuals of this sport – individuals such as Jason Wilcox – simply operate on a plane exceeding our mundane comprehension. If he ever did speak, probably we would perceive is a series of high-frequency signals and four-dimensional whirring. Desiring an explanation is not the same as being ready to comprehend it.

An Ultimate Power In the Throne

But of course, in training our focus on the sporting director we are obscuring the true genius behind the modern United throne. Jason Wilcox is, in reality, simply carrying out the commands of his ultimate superior Sir Jim Ratcliffe, who in private has emphasized his preference for a four-man defense. It is reported, the owner has also suggested deploying the forward in a wing-back role. The owner is eager for United to adopt analytics and metrics. According to ESPN, in an executive meeting soon after his investment, he declared that United’s style of play “shall be determined by this group”.

After all, Ratcliffe is an expert in this technical football matters, leveraging his previous experience in petrochemicals and yachting. Most importantly he remains immensely wealthy, and as we all know, the wealthy are the best of us: more insightful, sagacious, more tactically astute, fundamentally better. Who else would you trust to manage a strategic plan of austerity, the construction of a new stadium that appears a lot like someone’s leftover knitting, the signing of a new striker?

The Modern Football Order: Executives Above Managers

This is a trend we are increasingly seeing at the elite levels football. Historically, clubs foolishly entrusted major sporting choices to subordinate staff such as coaches, talent spotters – players themselves. Maybe previously feasible for a young, innovative manager with a philosophy and energy to go into a club and see their vision through to completion. But how many businesses have such individuals set up? How many mass redundancies have they overseen? Better by far to place the real power where it rightly belongs: the executive class, the open-necked shirt brigade, the individuals with the jaw-dropping professional resumes. It is wiser to decide the tactics in the boardroom and appoint someone who can tailor their offering accordingly. If managers were formerly chefs, they have become more akin to Deliveroo drivers: not responsible for the product, but still finally accountable should it be delivered poorly or fails of the box.

Nowadays, their job is increasingly less about defining the vision and more about selling it: the receptionist of the operation, the visible figurehead for a club they can do little to influence. A coach at Chelsea leads a team of very young players into the Champions League and wins domestic cups, and essentially is dismissed for talking. A manager at Celtic finds his standing damaged while the people who hired him continue to make errors indefinitely.

A Modern Corporate Game: Responsibility Only for the Coaches

And possibly in a small way this represents neoliberalism in action: the elevation of a privileged overclass who can never be wrong, whose choices are always sacrosanct, whose errors can invariably be sacked away without explanation. Hire the system coach only to dismiss him for playing excessively that system. Bring in the process guy and later bin him for requiring excessive time. And above all show gratitude; for your modest increases in ticket costs, for your new player acquisitions, for the fact that the adults – however well qualified – remain in control.