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Turns out the manager could survive losing against lower-league opposition. Survive a decisive European final against one of the worst Tottenham teams for many years. He withstood home defeats to West Ham and Wolves, finishing 15th, the tactical inflexibility, laying waste to some of the club’s most promising academy products, the 32% win rate, labeling the squad the poorest in Manchester United history. But there was a single opponent against whom the Portuguese coach was not permitted to engage. If you challenge the sporting director, and you best not miss.

Regrettably, similar to numerous top-flight defender during Blackburn Rovers' title-winning campaign, Amorim took on Jason Wilcox and appears to have failed. The most casual observer will notice the irony here: a manager who often railed at his players for losing individual battles crumbling when confronted by the intense pressure and formidable presence of a England's top division's most intimidating sporting directors.

In truth, this entire painful saga seems to paint the director in a different perspective. Perhaps it might have been easy, given his nine months in a similar role with the Saints, to view Jason Wilcox as little more than a drudge within the club's structure: a man whose appointment was due as much to his close relationship with his former boss a fellow executive as any verifiable talent. How mistaken we all were. In brilliantly outmanoeuvring the club's celebrated manager, just as he bested the unfortunate a previous executive before him, Jason Wilcox has demonstrated as one of football's strategic masterminds: a tactical intellect of which the club's competitors are now rightly wary.

A Tactical Conflict Over System and Philosophy

For example, it was Jason Wilcox who being involved in the leadership that hired the 3-4-3 fundamentalist Amorim in the first place, was instrumental in trying to persuade Amorim to ditch his favored formation. Unsurprisingly, these pleas faced pushback. But perhaps such directives carry more weight when issued from the mouth of a man the impeccable football pedigree of Jason Wilcox, holder of three England caps and a role in a title-winning side decades past.

Maybe eventually he may be persuaded to explain his thought processes publicly. Maybe one day he might be asked regarding why the coach is walking away with a full payout, with no compensation reduction clause in place. The director seldom speaks publicly, and with very good reason. The true intellectuals of this sport – individuals such as him – function at a level beyond our own prosaic understanding. Were he to speak, most likely all we would hear would be ultrasonic blips and complex calculations. Wanting is not equivalent to being ready to receive.

The Supreme Power In the Throne

Naturally, in training our focus on the sporting director we overlook the true genius behind the modern United throne. The director is, in reality, simply carrying out the directives of his ultimate line manager the billionaire owner, who in private has made very clear his preference for a back four. According to reports, the owner has also suggested deploying the forward as a right wing-back. Ratcliffe is keen for the club to embrace data science and metrics. Per reports, in an executive meeting soon after his minority ownership, he declared that the team's approach of play “shall be determined in this room”.

After all, Ratcliffe is an expert in these intricate football matters, drawing from his previous experience in petrochemicals and yachting. Most importantly he remains incredibly rich, and as we all know, the wealthy are the best of us: more insightful, sagacious, strategically brilliant, fundamentally better. Whom else could one trust to oversee a strategic plan of cost-cutting, the building of a modern arena that looks similar to someone’s leftover knitting, the signing of Benjamin Sesko?

The Modern Soccer Hierarchy: Executives Above Coaches

This represents a shift that is becoming prevalent in top-tier football. For decades, teams mistakenly delegated major sporting choices to subordinate staff such as coaches, talent spotters – even footballers. Maybe previously feasible for an up-and-coming, innovative manager with a philosophy and energy to go into a club and see their vision supported to fruition. Yet how many businesses have such individuals set up? What number of large-scale layoffs have they overseen? Far preferable to invest genuine authority where it belongs: the leadership tier, the open-necked shirt brigade, the guys with impressive LinkedIn profiles. Better by far to decide the tactics in the boardroom and appoint someone who can tailor their methods to suit. If coaches were once chefs, they have become more akin to Deliveroo drivers: not responsible for the product, yet ultimately answerable should it be delivered poorly or fails of the box.

In the meantime, a coach's role is increasingly not about crafting the philosophy and more about selling it: the receptionist of the operation, the public face of an organisation they have minimal power to change. A coach at Chelsea takes a squad of very young players into Europe and wins domestic cups, and essentially gets sacked for talking. Wilfried Nancy sees his reputation ruined while those individuals who hired him live to blunder another day.

A Modern Corporate Football: Accountability for the Coaches

And perhaps in a small way this is simply corporate governance at work: the elevation of a gilded elite who are infallible, whose decisions remain sacrosanct, whose mistakes can always be sacked away without justification. Hire the system coach only to fire them for playing excessively 3-4-3. Bring in the process guy and then bin them for requiring too long. And most importantly be grateful; for your modest season ticket price rises, for your new summer signings, for the reality that the grownups – however well qualified – remain in control.