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Turns out he endured losing against lower-league opposition. Survive a decisive continental showpiece against a particularly poor Tottenham teams in living memory. He withstood losing at home against West Ham and Wolves, a lowly league position, his rigid approach, undermining some of the club’s best academy products, the 32% win rate, labeling the squad the poorest the club has ever seen. Yet, there existed one adversary with whom the Portuguese coach was not permitted to dance. If you challenge the sporting director, you had better succeed.

Unfortunately, similar to numerous top-flight right-back in Blackburn’s championship campaign, the coach came at Jason Wilcox and seems to have failed. Even the most casual observer will notice the paradoxical situation: a manager who frequently berated his squad for losing one-on-one duels crumbling in the face of the white heat and formidable presence of one of the Premier League’s most intimidating football executives.

And frankly, this entire painful saga appears to portray the director in a whole new light. Perhaps it might have been easy, given his brief stint in a similar role with the Saints, to view Jason Wilcox as little more than a functionary within the club's structure: a man who owed his position largely to his close relationship with ex-colleague a fellow executive as any demonstrable skill. How mistaken we all were. In brilliantly outmanoeuvring United’s feted head coach, as he outmanoeuvred the hapless Dan Ashworth before him, Jason Wilcox has demonstrated to be among football's true generals: a tactical intellect that United’s mid-table rivals will now be rightly wary.

The Tactical Clash Regarding Formation and Philosophy

For example, this was the director , after having been part of the leadership that hired the rigid 3-4-3 advocate the coach in the first place, played a key role in attempting to convince Amorim to abandon his favored formation. Unsurprisingly, these pleas faced pushback. But perhaps such directives hold greater authority when issued by a man of a man the impeccable soccer background he possesses, a veteran of international appearances and a contributor to a championship team from 31 years ago.

Maybe eventually Jason Wilcox might agree to outline his reasoning to the rest of us. Maybe one day questions may arise regarding why the coach is walking away with a full payout, without any 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 exceeding our prosaic understanding. Were he to speak, most likely we would perceive would be high-frequency signals and complex calculations. Wanting is not equivalent to being prepared to comprehend it.

The Ultimate Authority Behind Command

But of course, in training our focus on Jason Wilcox we are obscuring the real power behind the club's current leadership. Jason Wilcox is, in reality, merely executing the commands of his ultimate superior the billionaire owner, who in private has made very clear his preference for a back four. It is reported, Ratcliffe has also proposed playing Bryan Mbeumo in a wing-back role. The owner is eager for the club to embrace data science and analytics. Per reports, during a leadership summit early in his investment, he declared that United’s style to football “shall be determined by this group”.

Ultimately, Sir Jim is an expert in this technical footballing stuff, leveraging his previous experience in industry and sailing. Most importantly he is immensely wealthy, and as we all know, the wealthy are superior: more perceptive, more wise, more tactically astute, fundamentally better. Whom else could one trust to manage a strategic plan of austerity, the building of a modern arena that appears similar to someone’s leftover knitting, the acquisition of Benjamin Sesko?

A Modern Soccer Order: Directors Above Coaches

This is a trend that is becoming prevalent at the elite levels of the game. For decades, clubs foolishly entrusted big footballing decisions to low-level employees such as coaches, scouts – even footballers. Perhaps it was once feasible for a young, innovative manager with ideas and drive to join a club and implement their plan supported to fruition. Yet how many businesses have these guys established? What number of mass redundancies have they managed? Better by far to place genuine authority where it belongs: the leadership tier, the open-necked shirt brigade, the individuals with impressive professional resumes. Better by far to decide the tactics by the directors and appoint someone who will adapt their methods accordingly. If managers were formerly chefs, they are now more akin to Deliveroo drivers: not responsible for the food, yet ultimately answerable should it be delivered cold or leaks out of the box.

Nowadays, a coach's role is increasingly not about crafting the philosophy and more about selling it: the front-facing representative of the operation, the visible figurehead for a club they have minimal power to influence. A coach at Chelsea leads a team of very young players into the Champions League and wins domestic cups, and effectively gets sacked for speaking out. Wilfried Nancy finds his standing damaged whereas the people who appointed him live to blunder another day.

A Modern Corporate Game: Accountability Only for the Few

And possibly in a small way this represents neoliberalism in action: the elevation of a gilded elite who can never be wrong, whose decisions are always sacrosanct, whose mistakes can always be sacked away without explanation. Hire the system coach only to dismiss them for playing excessively that system. Hire the project manager and then bin him for taking too long. And above all show gratitude; for your modest increases in ticket costs, for the latest summer signings, for the fact that the adults – regardless of their expertise – are in charge.