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Transpired he could survive a loss to lower-league opposition. Survive a decisive European final against a particularly poor Spurs sides for many years. He withstood home defeats against domestic rivals, a lowly league position, the tactical inflexibility, laying waste to the team's best homegrown talent, a poor winning percentage, calling the squad the worst the club has ever seen. Yet, there existed a single opponent with whom the Portuguese coach was not permitted to tango. You come at the sporting director, you had better succeed.

Unfortunately, similar to numerous top-flight right-back during Blackburn Rovers' title-winning campaign, the coach came at Jason Wilcox and seems to have failed. Even the most distracted of readers can see the irony here: a manager who often railed his squad for failing in individual battles succumbing when confronted by the intense pressure and animal charisma of a the Premier League’s most feared sporting directors.

And frankly, this whole bruising episode appears to portray Jason Wilcox in a different perspective. Perhaps it might have been easy, given his nine months in a similar role with the Saints, to regard him as merely a drudge in the United exoskeleton: a man whose appointment was due as much to his close relationship with his former boss a fellow executive rather than any demonstrable skill. How wrong everyone was. By masterfully outmanoeuvring United’s feted manager, as he outmanoeuvred the hapless a previous executive earlier, Jason Wilcox has demonstrated as one of the sport’s strategic masterminds: a tactical intellect that United’s competitors are now rightly wary.

A Strategic Conflict Regarding System and Ideology

To illustrate, it was the director who having been part of the hierarchy that hired the rigid 3-4-3 advocate Amorim originally, played a key role in attempting to convince him to abandon his favored 3-4-3. Naturally, these entreaties met a certain resistance. But perhaps these judgements hold greater authority when delivered from the mouth of a man the unimpeachable football pedigree of Jason Wilcox, holder of international appearances and a contributor to a title-winning side decades past.

Maybe eventually he may be persuaded to explain his thought processes to the rest of us. Perhaps at some point he might be asked why Amorim is departing with full compensation, with no penalty clause activated. But Jason Wilcox seldom speaks in public, for excellent reasons. The true intellectuals in football – individuals such as Jason Wilcox – function on a plane beyond our own mundane comprehension. Were he to speak, most likely all we would hear is a series of high-frequency signals and four-dimensional whirring. Desiring an explanation is not quite the same as being ready to receive.

An Supreme Authority In the Throne

Naturally, by focusing our attention on Jason Wilcox we are obscuring the true genius behind the club's current leadership. Jason Wilcox is, after all, simply carrying out the commands of his ultimate line manager the billionaire owner, who privately has emphasized his preference for a back four. According to reports, Ratcliffe has also proposed playing Bryan Mbeumo as a right wing-back. The owner is eager for the club to adopt analytics and analytics. According to ESPN, in an executive meeting early in his minority ownership, he declared that the team's approach to football “will be determined by this group”.

Ultimately, Ratcliffe is an expert in this technical footballing stuff, drawing from his background in petrochemicals and sailing. Above all he remains incredibly rich, and it is known, the wealthy are superior: more insightful, sagacious, strategically brilliant, simply better. Whom else would you trust to manage an enlightened programme of cost-cutting, the construction of a new stadium that looks similar to an abstract design, the signing of Benjamin Sesko?

The New Football Order: Directors Above Coaches

This represents a shift we are increasingly seeing in top-tier football. For decades, teams mistakenly entrusted big footballing decisions to subordinate staff such as coaches, scouts – players themselves. Perhaps it was once feasible for a young, visionary coach with ideas and drive to join an organization and implement their plan supported to fruition. Yet how many businesses have such individuals set up? How many mass redundancies have they overseen? Far preferable to invest the real power where it rightly belongs: the executive class, the casually dressed executives, the guys with impressive professional resumes. Better by far to determine the tactics in the boardroom and hire someone who can tailor their methods to suit. If managers were formerly chefs, they have become more akin to Deliveroo drivers: not really responsible for the food, yet ultimately answerable if it arrives poorly or leaks out of the box.

Nowadays, their job has become less about crafting the philosophy and more about selling it: the front-facing representative on the front desk, the public face of an organisation they have minimal power to change. A coach at Chelsea leads a team of very young players into Europe and secures two medium-sized trophies, and essentially gets sacked for speaking out. A manager at Celtic sees his standing damaged whereas those individuals who appointed him continue to make errors indefinitely.

The Modern Corporate Football: Accountability Only for the Few

And perhaps on some microcosmic level this represents corporate governance at work: the elevation of a privileged elite who are infallible, whose decisions are always untouchable, whose mistakes can always be resolved by sacking without justification. Hire the system coach only to fire them for using too much that system. Bring in the project manager and later discard him for taking excessive time. And most importantly be grateful; for the incremental season ticket price rises, for the latest summer signings, for the fact that the adults – however well qualified – are in charge.