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Turns out the manager was able to withstand a loss to lower-league opposition. Survive an important European final against one of the worst Tottenham teams for many years. He withstood home defeats against domestic rivals, a lowly league position, the tactical inflexibility, squandering some of the club’s best academy products, the 32% win rate, labeling his team the poorest the club has ever seen. Yet, there existed one adversary with whom the Portuguese coach would not be allowed to tango. If you challenge the sporting director, you had better succeed.

Regrettably, similar to numerous Premiership right-back during Blackburn Rovers' title-winning 1994-95 season, Amorim took on Jason Wilcox and appears to have failed. The most casual observer can see the paradoxical situation: a coach who frequently berated his squad for losing individual battles succumbing when confronted by the white heat and animal charisma of one of the Premier League’s most feared football executives.

And frankly, this whole 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 him as merely a functionary within the club's structure: a man who owed his position largely to his friendship with ex-colleague a fellow executive rather than any demonstrable skill. How wrong we all were. By masterfully outmanoeuvring United’s feted manager, just as he bested the unfortunate Dan Ashworth before him, Jason Wilcox has demonstrated to be among football's strategic masterminds: a strategic mind of which United’s mid-table rivals will now be rightly wary.

The Strategic Clash Regarding Formation & Ideology

For example, it was Jason Wilcox , after being involved in the leadership that appointed the 3-4-3 fundamentalist Amorim originally, played a key role in trying to persuade Amorim to abandon his favored 3-4-3. Unsurprisingly, these pleas faced pushback. However, these judgements carry more weight when issued by a man of a man the unimpeachable football pedigree he possesses, a veteran of three England caps and a contributor to a title-winning side from 31 years ago.

Perhaps in time Jason Wilcox may be persuaded to explain his thought processes to the rest of us. Maybe one day questions may arise why Amorim is walking away with full compensation, with no compensation reduction clause in place. The director seldom speaks publicly, and with very good reason. The real thinkers of this sport – individuals such as him – simply operate on a plane beyond our own mundane comprehension. If he ever did speak, most likely all we would hear would be ultrasonic blips and four-dimensional whirring. Wanting is not quite the same as being ready to comprehend it.

The Supreme Authority Behind Command

Naturally, in training our focus on the sporting director we overlook the real power behind the club's current leadership. The director is, in reality, simply carrying out the directives of his superior Sir Jim Ratcliffe, who in private has emphasized his preference for a back four. According to reports, Ratcliffe has also proposed deploying the forward as a right wing-back. The owner is eager for United to embrace data science and analytics. According to ESPN, during a leadership summit soon after his minority ownership, he announced that the team's approach of play “shall be decided in this room”.

Ultimately, Sir Jim is a specialist in this technical footballing stuff, leveraging his previous experience in petrochemicals and yachting. Above all he remains immensely wealthy, and as we all know, the rich are the best of us: more perceptive, more wise, strategically brilliant, simply better. Whom else could one trust to manage an enlightened programme of austerity, the building of a modern arena that looks a lot like someone’s leftover knitting, the signing of a new striker?

The Modern Soccer Hierarchy: Directors Above Coaches

This is a trend that is becoming prevalent at the elite levels of the game. For decades, teams mistakenly entrusted major sporting choices to subordinate staff like managers, talent spotters – players themselves. Maybe previously possible for a young, innovative manager with ideas and energy to go into an organization and implement their plan supported to fruition. But how many businesses have such individuals set up? How many large-scale layoffs have they overseen? Better by far to invest genuine authority where it belongs: the executive class, the casually dressed executives, the guys with impressive LinkedIn profiles. It is wiser to determine the strategy by the directors and appoint someone who will adapt their methods to suit. If managers were formerly chefs, they have become more like Deliveroo drivers: not creating the food, but still finally accountable if it arrives cold or leaks out of the box.

Nowadays, their job is increasingly less about defining the vision and more about selling it: the front-facing representative of the operation, the public face for a club they can do little to influence. A coach at Chelsea takes a squad of literal children into the Champions League and wins two medium-sized trophies, and effectively is dismissed for speaking out. A manager at Celtic sees his reputation ruined whereas the people who hired him continue to make errors indefinitely.

The Neoliberal Game: Responsibility Only for the Few

And possibly in a small way this represents corporate governance at work: the elevation of a privileged elite who are infallible, whose decisions remain sacrosanct, whose mistakes can always be sacked away without justification. Hire the system coach only to fire him for playing too much that system. Hire the project manager and then discard them for taking excessive time. And above all show gratitude; for the incremental season ticket price rises, for your new player acquisitions, for the reality that the grownups – however well qualified – are in charge.