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Itbecame clear he could survive losing against Grimsby. He weathered an important continental showpiece versus one of the worst Spurs sides in living memory. He could survive home defeats to domestic rivals, a lowly league position, his rigid approach, laying waste to some of the club’s most promising academy products, the 32% win rate, calling his team the worst the club has ever seen. Yet, there existed a single opponent against whom the Portuguese coach would not be allowed to dance. You come at the sporting director, you had better succeed.

Regrettably, like many a Premiership defender during Blackburn Rovers' title-winning campaign, the coach took on Jason Wilcox and seems to have missed. 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 white heat and animal charisma of one of the Premier League’s most intimidating football executives.

And frankly, this whole painful saga appears to portray Jason Wilcox in a whole new light. Perhaps it might have been easy, based on his brief stint in a similar role at Southampton, to view him as little more than a drudge in the United exoskeleton: an individual who owed his position as much to his close relationship with his former boss Omar Berrada as any verifiable talent. How wrong everyone was. By masterfully outsmarting the club's celebrated manager, as he outmanoeuvred the hapless Dan Ashworth before him, Jason Wilcox has proved himself as one of the sport’s strategic masterminds: a strategic mind of which the club's competitors are now rightly wary.

The Strategic Conflict Regarding Formation and Ideology

For example, this was the director who having been part of the leadership that appointed the 3-4-3 fundamentalist Amorim in the first place, played a key role in attempting to convince him to abandon his beloved 3-4-3. Naturally, these pleas met a certain resistance. But perhaps these judgements hold greater authority when delivered by a man with the unimpeachable soccer background he possesses, a veteran of three England caps and a role in a title-winning side decades past.

Maybe eventually he may be persuaded to outline his thought processes to the rest of us. Perhaps at some point he might be asked regarding why the coach is walking away with a full payout, without any penalty clause in place. The director speaks rarely publicly, and with very good reason. The true intellectuals in football – individuals such as Jason Wilcox – simply operate on a plane beyond our own mundane comprehension. If he ever did speak, most likely we would perceive is a series of ultrasonic blips and four-dimensional whirring. Wanting is not quite the same as being ready to receive.

The Supreme Power In Command

Naturally, in training our focus on Jason Wilcox we overlook the real power behind the club's current leadership. The director is, after all, simply carrying out the directives of his ultimate line manager the billionaire owner, who in private has emphasized his preference for a back four. It is reported, Ratcliffe has also suggested deploying the forward in a wing-back role. The owner is eager for United to embrace analytics and analytics. Per reports, during a leadership summit early in his investment, he declared that the team's approach to football “shall be decided in this room”.

After all, Ratcliffe is an expert in these intricate football matters, leveraging his previous experience in industry and sailing. Most importantly he remains incredibly rich, and it is known, the rich are superior: more perceptive, sagacious, more tactically astute, simply superior. Whom else could one trust to manage an enlightened programme of cost-cutting, the construction of a modern arena that appears similar to an abstract design, the signing of Benjamin Sesko?

A New Football Hierarchy: Executives Above Coaches

This represents a shift we are increasingly seeing in top-tier football. For decades, teams mistakenly delegated big footballing decisions to subordinate staff like managers, talent spotters – players themselves. Perhaps it was once possible for an up-and-coming, innovative manager with a philosophy and energy to join an organization and see their vision supported to fruition. Yet how many companies have these guys set up? What number of mass redundancies have they managed? Better by far to place genuine authority where it belongs: the leadership tier, the casually dressed executives, the guys with the jaw-dropping LinkedIn profiles. It is wiser to decide the strategy in the boardroom and appoint a coach who will adapt their offering accordingly. If coaches were formerly chefs, they have become more like delivery personnel: not responsible for the product, but still ultimately answerable if it arrives cold or leaks out to meet standards.

Nowadays, a coach's role has become less about defining the vision and more about marketing it: the receptionist of the operation, the visible figurehead of an organisation they can do little to change. Enzo Maresca takes a squad of literal children into Europe and secures two medium-sized trophies, and essentially is dismissed for talking. Wilfried Nancy finds his reputation ruined while the people who appointed him live to blunder another day.

The Neoliberal Football: Accountability for the Few

And possibly on some microcosmic level this is simply corporate governance at work: the elevation of a privileged overclass who are infallible, whose decisions remain sacrosanct, whose mistakes can always be resolved by sacking without explanation. Appoint the system coach and then fire him for using excessively that system. Hire the project manager and then discard them for taking excessive time. And most importantly be grateful; for your modest season ticket price rises, for the latest summer signings, for the fact that the grownups – however well qualified – are in charge.