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Tbecame clear the manager endured defeat by lower-league opposition. He weathered an important continental showpiece versus a particularly poor Spurs sides for many years. He withstood home defeats against domestic rivals, finishing 15th, an unwavering system, undermining the team's most promising homegrown talent, a poor winning percentage, labeling his team the worst the club has ever seen. But there was a single opponent against whom the Portuguese coach was not permitted to dance. If you challenge Jason Wilcox, you had better succeed.

Unfortunately, like many a top-flight right-back during Blackburn Rovers' championship campaign, the coach came at the executive and seems to have failed. The most casual observer will notice the paradoxical situation: a manager who often railed at his players for failing in one-on-one duels succumbing in the face of the white heat and formidable presence of one of the Premier League’s most intimidating sporting directors.

In truth, this entire bruising episode appears to portray Jason Wilcox in a whole new light. It may have been easy, given his brief stint of experience at Southampton, to regard Jason Wilcox as merely a functionary in the United exoskeleton: a man who owed his position largely to his close relationship with his former boss a fellow executive as any demonstrable skill. How mistaken we all were. In brilliantly outmanoeuvring the club's celebrated head coach, just as he bested the hapless Dan Ashworth before him, Jason Wilcox has demonstrated to be among football's true generals: a strategic mind of which the club's mid-table rivals will now be rightly wary.

The Tactical Conflict Over System and Ideology

To illustrate, this was the director , after having been part of the leadership that appointed the 3-4-3 fundamentalist Amorim in the first place, played a key role in trying to persuade him to ditch his beloved formation. Unsurprisingly, these pleas met a certain resistance. But perhaps such directives carry more weight when issued from the mouth with the impeccable soccer background he possesses, a veteran of international appearances and a role in a championship team from 31 years ago.

Perhaps in time Jason Wilcox might agree to explain his reasoning to the rest of us. Maybe one day he might be asked regarding why the coach is departing with a full payout, with no compensation reduction clause activated. But Jason Wilcox seldom speaks publicly, for excellent reasons. The true intellectuals of this sport – individuals such as Jason Wilcox – simply operate at a level exceeding our mundane comprehension. If he ever did speak, most likely we would perceive is a series of ultrasonic blips and complex calculations. Wanting is not equivalent to being ready to comprehend it.

The Supreme Power Behind the Throne

But of course, in training our focus on the sporting director we are obscuring the real power behind the club's current leadership. Jason Wilcox is, after all, merely executing the directives of his ultimate superior the billionaire owner, who in private has made very clear his preference for a four-man defense. It is reported, the owner has also suggested playing Bryan Mbeumo in a wing-back role. Ratcliffe is keen for the club to adopt data science and analytics. According to ESPN, in an executive meeting soon after his minority ownership, he declared that United’s style to football “will be determined in this room”.

After all, Ratcliffe is an expert in this technical football matters, leveraging his background in petrochemicals and sailing. Most importantly he remains immensely wealthy, and as we all know, the rich are the best of us: more insightful, more wise, more tactically astute, simply superior. Who else would you trust to manage a strategic plan of cost-cutting, the building of a new stadium that looks a lot like someone’s leftover knitting, the acquisition of a new striker?

The New Football Order: Executives Above Managers

This represents a shift we are increasingly seeing at the elite levels of the game. For decades, teams mistakenly entrusted major sporting choices to low-level employees such as coaches, scouts – even footballers. Maybe previously possible for an up-and-coming, innovative manager with ideas and drive to go into an organization and implement their plan supported to fruition. Yet how many businesses have these guys established? What number of large-scale layoffs have they overseen? Better by far to invest the real power where it belongs: the executive class, the casually dressed executives, the individuals with the jaw-dropping professional resumes. It is wiser to decide the tactics in the boardroom and hire someone who can tailor their offering to suit. If managers were once chefs, they are now more akin to delivery personnel: not creating the food, yet ultimately answerable if it arrives poorly or leaks out to meet standards.

Nowadays, their job has become not about defining the vision and more about marketing it: the front-facing representative of the operation, the visible figurehead for a club they can do little to change. A coach at Chelsea leads a team of literal children into Europe and wins domestic cups, and effectively is dismissed for speaking out. Wilfried Nancy finds his reputation ruined whereas the people who hired him continue to make errors indefinitely.

A Neoliberal Football: Responsibility Only for the Coaches

And perhaps on some microcosmic level this represents neoliberalism at work: the rise of a privileged elite who are infallible, whose decisions remain sacrosanct, whose mistakes can invariably be resolved by sacking without justification. Appoint the system coach and then fire them for using too much 3-4-3. Bring in the process guy and then bin him for requiring too long. And above all show gratitude; for the incremental increases in ticket costs, for your new summer signings, for the fact that the adults – regardless of their expertise – are in charge.