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Iturns out he was able to withstand losing against lower-league opposition. Survive an important continental showpiece against one of the worst Tottenham teams in living memory. He could survive losing at home against West Ham and Wolves, a lowly league position, the tactical inflexibility, squandering the team's best academy products, a poor winning percentage, labeling his team the poorest in Manchester United history. Yet, there existed a single opponent against whom Ruben Amorim was not permitted to dance. If you challenge the sporting director, and you best not miss.

Unfortunately, like many a Premiership right-back in Blackburn’s championship campaign, Amorim came at Jason Wilcox and seems to have missed. The most casual observer can see the irony here: a coach who frequently berated at his players for losing one-on-one duels crumbling in the face of the intense pressure and formidable presence of one of the Premier League’s most feared football executives.

In truth, this entire bruising episode appears to portray the director in a different perspective. Perhaps it might have been easy, based on his brief stint in a similar role at Southampton, to regard him as little more than a drudge in the United exoskeleton: a man who owed his position largely to his friendship with his former boss Omar Berrada as any demonstrable skill. How wrong everyone was. In brilliantly outmanoeuvring the club's celebrated manager, as he outmanoeuvred the hapless a previous executive before him, he has proved himself as one of football's true generals: a strategic mind of which the club's competitors will now be rightly wary.

A Strategic Conflict Over Formation & Philosophy

To illustrate, it was the director , after having been part of the hierarchy that appointed the 3-4-3 fundamentalist the coach originally, was instrumental in attempting to convince Amorim to abandon his beloved 3-4-3. Naturally, these pleas faced pushback. However, these judgements hold greater authority when delivered from the mouth of a man the unimpeachable football pedigree he possesses, holder of international appearances and a role in a title-winning side from 31 years ago.

Perhaps in time he might agree to explain his thought processes publicly. Perhaps at some point questions may arise why Amorim is departing with a full payout, with no penalty clause in place. The director seldom speaks in public, and with very good reason. The true intellectuals in football – individuals such as him – function at a level beyond our own prosaic understanding. Were he to speak, probably all we would hear would be ultrasonic blips and four-dimensional whirring. Wanting is not equivalent to being ready to comprehend it.

An Supreme Authority Behind Command

But of course, by focusing our attention on Jason Wilcox we are obscuring the real power behind the club's current leadership. The director is, after all, merely executing the directives of his line manager Sir Jim Ratcliffe, who in private has emphasized his preference for a four-man defense. It is reported, Ratcliffe has also proposed playing Bryan Mbeumo in a wing-back role. Ratcliffe is keen for United to adopt analytics and analytics. According to ESPN, during a leadership summit soon after his investment, he declared that United’s style to football “will be decided by this group”.

After all, Ratcliffe is an expert in this technical footballing stuff, leveraging his previous experience in petrochemicals and yachting. Most importantly he is incredibly rich, and as we all know, the wealthy are superior: more insightful, more wise, more tactically astute, fundamentally better. Who else would you trust to manage a strategic plan of austerity, the construction of a modern arena that looks a lot like an abstract design, the signing of Benjamin Sesko?

A Modern Football Hierarchy: Executives Above Managers

This is a trend we are increasingly seeing at the elite levels of the game. Historically, clubs foolishly delegated major sporting choices to subordinate staff like managers, scouts – even footballers. Maybe previously possible for an up-and-coming, visionary coach with a philosophy and energy to go into an organization and implement their plan through to completion. But how many businesses have such individuals set up? How many large-scale layoffs have they managed? Far preferable to invest the real power where it belongs: the executive class, the open-necked shirt brigade, the guys with the jaw-dropping professional resumes. Better by far to determine the tactics by the directors and hire someone who will adapt their offering accordingly. If coaches were formerly chefs, they are now more like delivery personnel: not really responsible for the food, yet ultimately answerable should it be delivered cold or fails of the box.

In the meantime, their job is increasingly less about defining the vision and more about selling it: the front-facing representative on the front desk, the public face for a club they can do little to change. A coach at Chelsea takes a squad of very young players into Europe and wins two medium-sized trophies, and effectively is dismissed for speaking out. Wilfried Nancy sees his standing damaged whereas the people who hired him live to blunder indefinitely.

A Neoliberal Football: Responsibility for the Coaches

And perhaps on some microcosmic level this represents corporate governance at work: the elevation of a privileged overclass who are infallible, whose choices remain untouchable, whose errors can invariably be sacked away without justification. Appoint the system coach only to fire him for using too much that system. Hire the project manager and later bin him for taking too long. And most importantly be grateful; for the incremental increases in ticket costs, for your new summer signings, for the reality that the adults – regardless of their expertise – are in charge.