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Transpired Ruben Amorim was able to withstand a loss to Grimsby. Survive a decisive continental showpiece against one of the worst Tottenham teams in living memory. He withstood losing at home to West Ham and Wolves, a lowly league position, his rigid approach, laying waste to some of the club’s most promising homegrown talent, the 32% win rate, labeling his team the poorest in Manchester United history. But there was one adversary against whom Ruben Amorim would not be allowed to engage. If you challenge the sporting director, and you best not miss.

Regrettably, similar to numerous top-flight right-back during Blackburn Rovers' title-winning campaign, the coach came at the executive and appears to have missed. Even the most distracted of readers 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 animal charisma of one of the Premier League’s most feared football executives.

And frankly, this entire painful saga appears to portray the director in a different perspective. It may have been tempting, given his brief stint in a similar role with the Saints, to view him as little more than a drudge in the United exoskeleton: a man who owed his position as much to his friendship with ex-colleague a fellow executive as any demonstrable skill. How wrong we all were. In brilliantly outsmarting the club's celebrated head coach, just as he bested the hapless a previous executive earlier, he has proved himself to be among the sport’s strategic masterminds: a strategic mind that the club's mid-table rivals will now be rightly wary.

The Strategic Clash Over System and Ideology

To illustrate, this was the director , after being involved in the leadership that hired the 3-4-3 fundamentalist the coach in the first place, was instrumental in trying to persuade Amorim to abandon his favored 3-4-3. Unsurprisingly, these entreaties were resisted. However, these judgements carry more weight when delivered by a man with the unimpeachable football pedigree he possesses, a veteran of three England caps and a role in a title-winning side decades past.

Maybe eventually he may be persuaded to outline 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. But Jason Wilcox speaks rarely in public, and with very good reason. The real thinkers in football – individuals such as him – simply operate on a plane exceeding our prosaic understanding. Were he to speak, most likely we would perceive is a series of ultrasonic blips and four-dimensional whirring. Desiring an explanation is not the same as being ready to receive.

The Ultimate Authority Behind the Throne

Naturally, by focusing our attention on Jason Wilcox we overlook the real power behind the club's current leadership. Jason Wilcox is, in reality, merely executing the commands of his line manager Sir Jim Ratcliffe, who in private has made very clear his desire for a back four. According to reports, the owner has also proposed deploying the forward in a wing-back role. Ratcliffe is keen for the club to embrace analytics and metrics. Per reports, in an executive meeting soon after his minority ownership, he announced that the team's approach of play “shall be determined by this group”.

After all, Sir Jim is a specialist in these intricate footballing stuff, drawing from his background in petrochemicals and sailing. Most importantly he is incredibly rich, and it is known, the rich are the best of us: more insightful, sagacious, more tactically astute, fundamentally better. Whom else could one trust to oversee a strategic plan of austerity, the building of a new stadium that appears similar to someone’s leftover knitting, the signing of a new striker?

The Modern Soccer Order: Directors Over Coaches

This is a trend we are increasingly seeing in top-tier of the game. For decades, teams mistakenly entrusted major sporting choices to subordinate staff such as coaches, scouts – players themselves. Perhaps it was once possible for a young, innovative manager with a philosophy and drive to join a club and implement their plan supported to fruition. But how many companies have these guys set up? How many mass redundancies have they managed? Far preferable to place the real power where it rightly belongs: the executive class, the open-necked shirt brigade, the individuals with the jaw-dropping professional resumes. It is wiser to decide the tactics by the directors and appoint a coach who will adapt their methods accordingly. If coaches were formerly chefs, they are now more like delivery personnel: not responsible for the product, yet finally accountable should it be delivered poorly or fails of the box.

Nowadays, their job has become not about crafting the philosophy and more about selling it: the receptionist on the front desk, the public face of an organisation they can do little to change. A coach at Chelsea leads a team of very young players into the Champions League and wins two medium-sized trophies, and effectively gets sacked for talking. A manager at Celtic finds his reputation ruined whereas those individuals who hired him continue to make errors indefinitely.

A Modern Corporate Football: Accountability for the Few

And perhaps on some microcosmic level this represents corporate governance in action: the rise of a gilded overclass who are infallible, whose decisions are always sacrosanct, whose mistakes can invariably be sacked away without explanation. Appoint the system coach and then fire him for using excessively 3-4-3. Hire the project manager and later discard them for requiring excessive time. And most importantly show gratitude; for the incremental increases in ticket costs, for your new summer signings, for the reality that the grownups – however well qualified – remain in control.