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Transpired he endured defeat by lower-league opposition. He weathered losing a crucial continental showpiece against a particularly poor Tottenham teams in living memory. He withstood home defeats against West Ham and Wolves, finishing 15th, his rigid approach, squandering some of the club’s best academy products, the 32% win rate, labeling his team the worst in Manchester United history. Yet, there existed a single opponent against whom Ruben Amorim was not permitted to dance. If you challenge Jason Wilcox, and you best not miss.

Regrettably, like many a top-flight defender in Blackburn’s title-winning 1994-95 season, the coach came at the executive and appears to have missed. The most casual observer will notice the paradoxical situation: a coach who frequently berated at his players for losing one-on-one duels succumbing when confronted by the white heat and formidable presence of one of England's top division's most intimidating football executives.

In truth, this whole painful saga appears to portray Jason Wilcox in a whole new light. It may have been easy, given his nine months of experience with the Saints, to view him as little more than a drudge within the club's structure: an individual whose appointment was due as much to his close relationship with his former boss Omar Berrada rather than any demonstrable skill. How wrong we all were. By masterfully outmanoeuvring United’s feted head coach, as he outmanoeuvred the unfortunate a previous executive before him, Jason Wilcox has demonstrated as one of football's true generals: a strategic mind that the club's competitors will now be rightly wary.

A Strategic Conflict Over System & Ideology

To illustrate, this was Jason Wilcox , after having been part of the leadership that appointed the rigid 3-4-3 advocate the coach originally, was instrumental in attempting to convince him to ditch his favored 3-4-3. Naturally, these pleas were resisted. But perhaps such directives hold greater authority when delivered from the mouth of a man the impeccable soccer background he possesses, holder of international appearances and a contributor to a title-winning side decades past.

Perhaps in time Jason Wilcox may be persuaded to explain his reasoning to the rest of us. Perhaps at some point questions may arise regarding why the coach is departing with a full payout, with no penalty clause in place. But Jason Wilcox speaks rarely publicly, and with very good reason. The true intellectuals in football – men like Jason Wilcox – simply operate on a plane exceeding our prosaic understanding. 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 equivalent to being prepared to receive.

An Supreme Authority Behind the Throne

Naturally, in training our focus on the sporting director we are obscuring the true genius behind the club's current leadership. Jason Wilcox is, in reality, simply carrying out the commands of his line manager the billionaire owner, who privately has made very clear his preference for a four-man defense. It is reported, the owner has also proposed deploying the forward in a wing-back role. The owner is eager for United to adopt analytics and analytics. Per reports, in an executive meeting soon after his minority ownership, he declared that United’s style to football “will be decided in this room”.

Ultimately, Sir Jim is an expert in this technical footballing stuff, leveraging his previous experience in industry and yachting. Above all he is immensely wealthy, and as we all know, the wealthy are superior: more insightful, more wise, more tactically astute, fundamentally superior. Whom else would you trust to manage an enlightened programme of cost-cutting, the construction of a new stadium that looks a lot like an abstract design, the acquisition of Benjamin Sesko?

The New Football Hierarchy: Executives Above Coaches

This represents a shift that is becoming prevalent at the elite levels of the game. Historically, clubs foolishly entrusted major sporting choices to subordinate staff such as coaches, talent spotters – even footballers. Perhaps it was once feasible for an up-and-coming, visionary coach with a philosophy and energy to join a club and implement their plan through to completion. But how many businesses have these guys established? What number of mass redundancies have they overseen? Better by far to invest genuine authority where it rightly belongs: the leadership tier, the open-necked shirt brigade, the individuals with impressive professional resumes. It is wiser to determine the strategy by the directors and hire someone who can tailor their offering to suit. If managers were formerly chefs, they are now more akin to delivery personnel: not really creating the product, yet finally accountable if it arrives poorly or leaks out to meet standards.

In the meantime, their job has become not 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 influence. A coach at Chelsea leads a team of literal children into the Champions League and wins two medium-sized trophies, and effectively is dismissed for speaking out. Wilfried Nancy finds his reputation ruined while those individuals who hired him continue to make errors another day.

A Modern Corporate Game: Responsibility Only for the Coaches

And possibly in a small way this represents neoliberalism at work: the rise of a gilded overclass who are infallible, whose choices are always untouchable, whose errors can invariably be sacked away without justification. Appoint the 3-4-3 coach and then fire them for using too much 3-4-3. Bring in the project manager and later bin him for requiring too long. And above all show gratitude; for the incremental increases in ticket costs, for the latest player acquisitions, for the reality that the grownups – regardless of their expertise – remain in control.