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Itranspired he could survive defeat by Grimsby. Survive losing a crucial European final against one of the worst Tottenham teams in living memory. He could survive losing at home to domestic rivals, a lowly league position, the tactical inflexibility, laying waste to some of the club’s most promising homegrown talent, a poor winning percentage, calling his team the poorest the club has ever seen. Yet, there existed one adversary against whom Ruben Amorim was not permitted to dance. You come at the sporting director, you had better succeed.

Regrettably, similar to numerous top-flight right-back during Blackburn Rovers' championship campaign, Amorim took on the executive and appears to have missed. Even the most casual observer can see the irony here: a coach who frequently berated his squad for failing in individual battles crumbling when confronted by the white heat and animal charisma of a the Premier League’s most feared sporting directors.

And frankly, this entire painful saga appears to portray Jason Wilcox in a different perspective. It may have been easy, based on his nine months of experience with the Saints, to view Jason Wilcox as little more than a functionary in the United exoskeleton: a man whose appointment was due as much to his close relationship with ex-colleague Omar Berrada rather than any demonstrable skill. How mistaken everyone was. By masterfully outsmarting the club's celebrated head coach, as he outmanoeuvred the unfortunate a previous executive before him, Jason Wilcox has proved himself as one of the sport’s true generals: a strategic mind of which the club's mid-table rivals will now be rightly wary.

The Tactical Conflict Regarding System and Ideology

To illustrate, this was the director who having been part of the hierarchy that hired the 3-4-3 fundamentalist Amorim in the first place, was instrumental in attempting to convince Amorim to ditch his favored 3-4-3. Unsurprisingly, these pleas were resisted. But perhaps such directives hold greater authority when issued by a man of a man the unimpeachable football pedigree he possesses, holder of international appearances and a role in a championship team decades past.

Maybe eventually Jason Wilcox might agree to outline his thought processes to the rest of us. Perhaps at some point he might be asked regarding why the coach is walking away with a full payout, without any penalty clause activated. But Jason Wilcox seldom speaks publicly, for excellent reasons. 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 would be ultrasonic blips and complex calculations. Desiring an explanation is not equivalent to being ready to comprehend it.

The Supreme Authority Behind the Throne

But of course, in training our focus on the sporting director we overlook the real power behind the modern United throne. The director is, after all, merely executing the directives of his ultimate line manager Sir Jim Ratcliffe, who in private has made very clear his desire for a four-man defense. According to reports, Ratcliffe has also suggested playing Bryan Mbeumo in a wing-back role. The owner is eager for United to adopt analytics and analytics. According to ESPN, during a leadership summit soon after his minority ownership, he declared that the team's approach of play “will be decided in this room”.

Ultimately, Ratcliffe is a specialist in this technical football matters, leveraging his background in industry and sailing. Above all he remains incredibly rich, and it is known, the rich are superior: more perceptive, more wise, strategically brilliant, simply better. Who else could one trust to manage an enlightened programme of cost-cutting, the construction of a modern arena that appears similar to an abstract design, the signing of a new striker?

A New Football Hierarchy: Directors Over Coaches

This is a trend that is becoming prevalent at the elite levels of the game. Historically, clubs foolishly entrusted big footballing decisions to low-level employees such as coaches, talent spotters – players themselves. Perhaps it was once possible for an up-and-coming, visionary coach 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 large-scale layoffs have they overseen? Better by far to invest genuine authority where it rightly belongs: the leadership tier, the open-necked shirt brigade, the individuals with impressive professional resumes. It is wiser to decide the tactics by the directors and appoint a coach who can tailor their offering to suit. If coaches were once chefs, they are now more akin to Deliveroo drivers: not creating the product, yet ultimately answerable if it arrives poorly or fails to meet standards.

In the meantime, a coach's role has become not about crafting the philosophy and more about selling it: the front-facing representative of the operation, the visible figurehead of an organisation they have minimal power to change. A coach at Chelsea takes a squad of very young players into Europe and wins two medium-sized trophies, and effectively is dismissed for speaking out. A manager at Celtic sees his reputation ruined whereas the people who hired him live to blunder another day.

A Modern Corporate Football: Responsibility Only for the Few

And possibly 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 errors can always be resolved by sacking without explanation. Hire the system coach and then dismiss them for playing excessively that system. Hire the process guy and later bin them for requiring excessive time. And most importantly be grateful; for your modest season ticket price rises, for your new player acquisitions, for the reality that the grownups – however well qualified – remain in control.