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Turns out he was able to withstand defeat by lower-league opposition. Survive a decisive continental showpiece versus one of the worst Tottenham teams in living memory. He could survive losing at home to West Ham and Wolves, a lowly league position, an unwavering system, squandering some of the club’s most promising academy products, a poor winning percentage, labeling his team the worst the club has ever seen. Yet, there existed a single opponent with whom the Portuguese coach was not permitted to engage. If you challenge Jason Wilcox, you had better succeed.

Unfortunately, like many a top-flight right-back during Blackburn Rovers' title-winning campaign, Amorim came at Jason Wilcox and seems to have failed. Even the most distracted of readers will notice the irony here: a manager who often railed his squad for losing one-on-one duels succumbing in the face of the intense pressure and formidable presence of one of the Premier League’s most intimidating football executives.

And frankly, this entire painful saga seems to paint Jason Wilcox in a different perspective. Perhaps it might have been tempting, based on his nine months in a similar role at Southampton, to regard Jason Wilcox as little more than a functionary within the club's structure: an individual whose appointment was due as much to his friendship with ex-colleague Omar Berrada rather than any verifiable talent. How wrong we all were. By masterfully outmanoeuvring the club's celebrated manager, just as he bested the hapless a previous executive before him, he has proved himself to be among the sport’s strategic masterminds: a strategic mind that the club's competitors are now rightly wary.

A Strategic Clash Regarding System & Ideology

For example, it was the director who having been part of the leadership that appointed the 3-4-3 fundamentalist the coach in the first place, played a key role in trying to persuade him to ditch his favored 3-4-3. Naturally, these pleas met a certain resistance. But perhaps such directives carry more weight when delivered by a man with the unimpeachable football pedigree of Jason Wilcox, a veteran of three England caps and a role in a title-winning side from 31 years ago.

Perhaps in time he may be persuaded to explain his thought processes publicly. Maybe one day questions may arise regarding why the coach is walking away with a full payout, with no penalty clause activated. But Jason Wilcox speaks rarely in public, for excellent reasons. The true intellectuals of this sport – men like Jason Wilcox – function on a plane beyond our own prosaic understanding. Were he to speak, probably we would perceive would be high-frequency signals and four-dimensional whirring. Wanting is not equivalent to being prepared to comprehend it.

The Supreme Authority In the Throne

But of course, by focusing our attention on the sporting director we overlook the true genius behind the modern United throne. The director is, in reality, simply carrying out the directives of his line manager Sir Jim Ratcliffe, who in private has made very clear his preference for a four-man defense. According to reports, Ratcliffe has also proposed playing Bryan Mbeumo in a wing-back role. The owner is eager for United to embrace analytics and analytics. According to ESPN, during a leadership summit early in his investment, he declared that United’s style to football “will be determined in this room”.

After all, Sir Jim is a specialist in this technical football matters, leveraging his previous experience in petrochemicals and sailing. Above all he is immensely wealthy, and as we all know, the wealthy are superior: more insightful, more wise, strategically brilliant, simply better. Whom else could one trust to manage an enlightened programme of cost-cutting, the building of a new stadium that looks similar to an abstract design, the signing of Benjamin Sesko?

The New Soccer Hierarchy: Directors Above Managers

This is a trend that is becoming prevalent at the elite levels football. For decades, teams mistakenly delegated major sporting choices to subordinate staff like managers, talent spotters – players themselves. Maybe previously possible for an up-and-coming, innovative manager with ideas and drive to go into a club and implement their plan supported to fruition. But how many businesses have such individuals set up? What number of mass redundancies have they managed? Far preferable to place the real power where it rightly belongs: the executive class, the open-necked shirt brigade, the individuals with the jaw-dropping LinkedIn profiles. It is wiser to determine the tactics in the boardroom and appoint someone who will adapt their offering to suit. If managers were once chefs, they are now more like delivery personnel: not responsible for the food, yet finally accountable if it arrives poorly or leaks out to meet standards.

Nowadays, their job is increasingly not about defining the vision and more about marketing it: the front-facing representative of the operation, the public face for a club they can do little to influence. Enzo Maresca takes a squad of very young players into Europe and secures two medium-sized trophies, and essentially is dismissed for speaking out. A manager at Celtic finds his reputation ruined whereas those individuals who appointed him live to blunder indefinitely.

A Modern Corporate Football: Accountability Only for the Coaches

And possibly on some microcosmic level this is simply neoliberalism at work: the elevation of a privileged overclass who can never be wrong, whose decisions are always sacrosanct, whose mistakes can invariably be resolved by sacking without justification. Hire the system coach only to fire them for using too much 3-4-3. Hire the project manager and then bin them for requiring too long. And above all show gratitude; for the incremental season ticket price rises, for the latest summer signings, for the fact that the grownups – regardless of their expertise – remain in control.