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Itranspired he endured losing against lower-league opposition. He weathered an important continental showpiece versus one of the worst Tottenham teams in living memory. He could survive home defeats against West Ham and Wolves, a lowly league position, the tactical inflexibility, squandering some of the club’s most promising homegrown talent, the 32% win rate, calling his team the poorest in Manchester United history. Yet, there existed one adversary with whom Ruben Amorim was not permitted to tango. If you challenge Jason Wilcox, and you best not miss.

Regrettably, similar to numerous top-flight defender during Blackburn Rovers' championship 1994-95 season, the coach took on Jason Wilcox and appears to have failed. Even the most distracted of readers will notice the paradoxical situation: a coach who frequently berated his squad for failing in one-on-one duels succumbing in the face of the intense pressure and animal charisma of a the Premier League’s most feared football executives.

In truth, this entire bruising episode appears to portray Jason Wilcox in a different perspective. It may have been easy, given his nine months of experience at Southampton, to view Jason Wilcox as merely a functionary in the United exoskeleton: an individual whose appointment was due as much to his friendship with his former boss Omar Berrada rather than any verifiable talent. How wrong we all were. By masterfully outsmarting United’s feted manager, as he outmanoeuvred the unfortunate Dan Ashworth before him, Jason Wilcox has demonstrated as one of the sport’s true generals: a strategic mind of which United’s competitors are now rightly wary.

The Tactical Clash Regarding System & Ideology

To illustrate, this was Jason Wilcox who having been part of the leadership that hired the rigid 3-4-3 advocate the coach originally, was instrumental in attempting to convince him to abandon his beloved formation. Naturally, these pleas were resisted. However, such directives carry more weight when issued by a man of a man the impeccable football pedigree of Jason Wilcox, holder of international appearances and a role in a championship team decades past.

Maybe eventually 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 activated. But Jason Wilcox speaks rarely in public, and with very good reason. The true intellectuals in football – men like Jason Wilcox – function at a level beyond our own mundane comprehension. Were he to speak, probably all we would hear is a series of high-frequency signals and complex calculations. Wanting is not quite equivalent to being ready to receive.

An Ultimate Power Behind Command

But of course, in training our focus on Jason Wilcox we are obscuring the real power behind the club's current leadership. The director is, after all, simply carrying out the directives of his superior the billionaire owner, who privately has made very clear his desire for a back four. It is reported, the owner has also suggested deploying the forward in a wing-back role. Ratcliffe is keen for United to adopt analytics and metrics. According to ESPN, during a leadership summit early in his minority ownership, he declared that the team's approach to football “will be decided by this group”.

After all, Ratcliffe is an expert in these intricate football matters, leveraging his background in industry and sailing. Above all he remains immensely wealthy, and as we all know, the wealthy are the best of us: more insightful, sagacious, strategically brilliant, fundamentally better. Who else could one trust to oversee a strategic plan of cost-cutting, the construction of a new stadium that appears similar to an abstract design, the signing of Benjamin Sesko?

A Modern Soccer Order: Executives Over Coaches

This represents a shift we are increasingly seeing in top-tier of the game. Historically, teams mistakenly delegated major sporting choices to subordinate staff like managers, scouts – even footballers. Perhaps it was once feasible for a young, visionary coach with ideas and energy to join a club and see their vision through to completion. Yet how many businesses have these guys established? How many large-scale layoffs have they overseen? Far preferable to invest the real power where it rightly belongs: the executive class, the casually dressed executives, the guys with the jaw-dropping LinkedIn profiles. Better by far to determine the tactics by the directors and appoint a coach who will adapt their offering accordingly. If managers were once chefs, they are now more like delivery personnel: not creating the product, but still ultimately answerable if it arrives poorly or leaks out of the box.

Nowadays, their job is increasingly not about crafting the philosophy and more about selling it: the front-facing representative on the front desk, the visible figurehead for a club they have minimal power to influence. Enzo Maresca leads a team of literal children into the Champions League and wins two medium-sized trophies, and essentially is dismissed for speaking out. A manager at Celtic finds his reputation ruined while those individuals who appointed him live to blunder indefinitely.

A Neoliberal Football: Responsibility Only for the Coaches

And perhaps in a small way this represents neoliberalism in action: the elevation of a gilded overclass who can never be wrong, whose choices remain sacrosanct, whose mistakes can invariably be sacked away without justification. Hire the 3-4-3 coach and then fire them for playing excessively that system. Hire the project manager and then discard him for requiring excessive time. And above all be grateful; for your modest increases in ticket costs, for the latest summer signings, for the fact that the adults – however well qualified – remain in control.