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Iturns out the manager was able to withstand defeat by lower-league opposition. He weathered a decisive continental showpiece versus a particularly poor Tottenham teams for many years. He could survive home defeats to domestic rivals, a lowly league position, his rigid approach, undermining some of the club’s most promising homegrown talent, a poor winning percentage, calling his team the poorest in Manchester United history. But there was one adversary with whom the Portuguese coach was not permitted to engage. You come at Jason Wilcox, you had better succeed.

Regrettably, similar to numerous top-flight defender during Blackburn Rovers' championship 1994-95 season, the coach came at Jason Wilcox and appears to have missed. Even the most distracted of readers can see the irony here: a manager who often railed at his players for failing in one-on-one duels crumbling in the face of the intense pressure and animal charisma of one of the Premier League’s most intimidating football executives.

In truth, this entire bruising episode appears to portray the director in a different perspective. Perhaps it might have been easy, given his nine months of experience with the Saints, to regard him as merely a functionary in the United exoskeleton: an individual whose appointment was due as much to his close relationship with his former boss a fellow executive rather than any demonstrable skill. How wrong we all were. In brilliantly outmanoeuvring United’s feted head coach, just as he bested the unfortunate Dan Ashworth earlier, he has proved himself as one of the sport’s strategic masterminds: a tactical intellect of which United’s mid-table rivals will now be rightly wary.

A Strategic Clash Regarding System and Ideology

For example, this was the director , after being involved in the hierarchy that appointed the rigid 3-4-3 advocate Amorim originally, played a key role in attempting to convince Amorim to ditch his beloved formation. Naturally, these entreaties faced pushback. But perhaps these judgements carry more weight when issued from the mouth with the unimpeachable football pedigree he possesses, a veteran of international appearances and a contributor to a championship team decades past.

Maybe eventually Jason Wilcox may be persuaded to outline his reasoning publicly. Maybe one day questions may arise why Amorim is departing with a full payout, without any penalty clause activated. The director seldom speaks in public, for excellent reasons. The true intellectuals in football – men like him – function on a plane exceeding our prosaic understanding. Were he to speak, most likely we would perceive is a series of high-frequency signals and complex calculations. Desiring an explanation is not the same as being ready to receive.

The Ultimate Authority In Command

But of course, by focusing our attention on Jason Wilcox we are obscuring the true genius behind the club's current leadership. Jason Wilcox is, in reality, simply carrying out the directives of his superior the billionaire owner, who privately has emphasized his desire for a four-man defense. It is reported, Ratcliffe has also suggested playing Bryan Mbeumo as a right wing-back. Ratcliffe is keen for the club to adopt analytics and analytics. According to ESPN, in an executive meeting soon after his investment, he declared that the team's approach of play “will be decided in this room”.

After all, Ratcliffe is a specialist in this technical footballing stuff, leveraging his previous experience in industry and sailing. Most importantly he is immensely wealthy, and it is known, the rich are the best of us: more perceptive, sagacious, strategically brilliant, fundamentally superior. Who else would you trust to oversee an enlightened programme of austerity, the construction of a modern arena that looks similar to someone’s leftover knitting, the acquisition of a new striker?

A New Football Order: Directors Over Coaches

This is a trend that is becoming prevalent in top-tier of the game. For decades, clubs foolishly entrusted major sporting choices to subordinate staff such as coaches, talent spotters – players themselves. Maybe previously feasible for an up-and-coming, innovative manager with ideas and energy to join a club and see their vision supported to fruition. But how many businesses have such individuals established? What number of mass redundancies have they overseen? Better by far to invest genuine authority where it belongs: the leadership tier, the open-necked shirt brigade, the individuals with the jaw-dropping LinkedIn profiles. It is wiser to determine the tactics in the boardroom and hire a coach who can tailor their offering to suit. If managers were formerly chefs, they have become more akin to Deliveroo drivers: not really responsible for the product, but still ultimately answerable should it be delivered cold or fails of the box.

In the meantime, their job has become not about defining the vision and more about selling it: the receptionist of the operation, the visible figurehead of an organisation 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 essentially gets sacked for talking. Wilfried Nancy sees his reputation ruined whereas the people who hired him live to blunder indefinitely.

The Neoliberal Game: Responsibility for the Few

And perhaps on some microcosmic level this represents corporate governance at work: the elevation of a privileged overclass who are infallible, whose decisions are always untouchable, whose errors can invariably be resolved by sacking without explanation. Hire the system coach and then fire him for playing excessively that system. Hire the project manager and later bin them for taking too long. And most importantly be grateful; for the incremental season ticket price rises, for your new summer signings, for the reality that the adults – regardless of their expertise – are in charge.