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Tbecame clear Ruben Amorim endured losing against Grimsby. He weathered an important European final against a particularly poor Tottenham teams for many years. He withstood home defeats to West Ham and Wolves, finishing 15th, his rigid approach, squandering the team's most promising academy products, a poor winning percentage, labeling his team the worst the club has ever seen. Yet, there existed one adversary against whom Ruben Amorim was not permitted to tango. You come at the sporting director, you had better succeed.

Regrettably, like many a top-flight defender in Blackburn’s title-winning 1994-95 season, Amorim came at the executive and appears to have failed. The most distracted of readers will notice the irony here: a manager who frequently berated at his players for failing in individual battles succumbing when confronted by the white heat and formidable presence of one of England's top division's most intimidating football executives.

And frankly, this whole bruising episode seems to paint the director in a different perspective. Perhaps it might have been tempting, based on his brief stint of experience with the Saints, to view Jason Wilcox as merely a functionary within the club's structure: a man whose appointment was due largely to his friendship with ex-colleague a fellow executive rather than any verifiable talent. How mistaken we all were. In brilliantly outsmarting United’s feted head coach, as he outmanoeuvred the unfortunate Dan Ashworth before him, he has demonstrated to be among football's strategic masterminds: a tactical intellect that United’s competitors will now be justifiably concerned.

The Tactical Conflict Regarding System and Ideology

To illustrate, it was Jason Wilcox who having been part of the leadership that appointed the 3-4-3 fundamentalist Amorim originally, was instrumental in attempting to convince him to ditch his favored formation. Unsurprisingly, these pleas were resisted. However, these judgements hold greater authority when issued from the mouth with the impeccable football pedigree of Jason Wilcox, holder of three England caps and a contributor to a championship team decades past.

Perhaps in time he might agree to outline his reasoning publicly. Perhaps at some point questions may arise regarding why the coach is walking away with full compensation, without any penalty clause activated. But Jason Wilcox speaks rarely publicly, and with very good reason. The real thinkers in football – men like him – simply operate on a plane beyond our own prosaic understanding. Were he to speak, probably all we would hear would be high-frequency signals and complex calculations. Wanting is not quite equivalent to being prepared to comprehend it.

The Supreme Power Behind the Throne

But of course, by focusing our attention on the sporting director we overlook the real power behind the club's current leadership. The director is, in reality, merely executing the directives of his line manager the billionaire owner, who in private has made very clear his preference for a four-man defense. According to reports, the owner has also proposed deploying the forward in a wing-back role. Ratcliffe is keen for United to embrace analytics and analytics. According to ESPN, during a leadership summit early in his investment, he declared that the team's approach of play “shall be decided in this room”.

After all, Ratcliffe is a specialist in these intricate football matters, leveraging his background in petrochemicals and sailing. Above all he remains immensely wealthy, and as we all know, the rich are superior: more insightful, sagacious, more tactically astute, fundamentally superior. Who else could one trust to manage an enlightened programme of austerity, the construction of a modern arena that appears similar to an abstract design, the acquisition of a new striker?

A New Soccer Hierarchy: Executives Over Managers

This represents a shift that is becoming prevalent in top-tier football. For decades, teams mistakenly entrusted major sporting choices to low-level employees such as coaches, scouts – even footballers. Perhaps it was once possible for an up-and-coming, visionary coach with a philosophy and drive to join a club and see their vision supported to fruition. But how many companies have these guys set up? What number of large-scale layoffs have they overseen? Far preferable to place the real power where it rightly belongs: the leadership tier, the casually dressed executives, the individuals with the jaw-dropping LinkedIn profiles. Better by far to decide the strategy in the boardroom and hire someone who can tailor their offering to suit. If coaches were formerly chefs, they are now more akin to Deliveroo drivers: not creating the food, yet ultimately answerable if it arrives poorly or leaks out of the box.

Nowadays, their job has become not about defining the vision and more about marketing it: the front-facing representative of the operation, the public face of an organisation they can do little to influence. A coach at Chelsea takes a squad of literal children into the Champions League and wins two medium-sized trophies, and essentially is dismissed for speaking out. A manager at Celtic sees his reputation ruined whereas those individuals who hired him live to blunder indefinitely.

A Modern Corporate Game: Accountability for the Few

And possibly on some microcosmic level this represents corporate governance in action: the rise of a gilded overclass who can never be wrong, whose choices are always untouchable, whose mistakes can invariably be sacked away without justification. Appoint the system coach and then fire them for playing excessively 3-4-3. Hire the process guy and then bin him for requiring too long. And above all be grateful; for the incremental season ticket price rises, for your new player acquisitions, for the fact that the adults – however well qualified – remain in control.