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Turns out Ruben Amorim endured defeat by lower-league opposition. He weathered losing a crucial continental showpiece versus a particularly poor Spurs sides in living memory. He withstood home defeats to West Ham and Wolves, a lowly league position, an unwavering system, undermining some of the club’s most promising academy products, the 32% win rate, calling his team the worst in Manchester United history. Yet, there existed a single opponent with whom the Portuguese coach would not be allowed to dance. If you challenge the sporting director, you had better succeed.

Unfortunately, like many a Premiership right-back during Blackburn Rovers' title-winning 1994-95 season, Amorim came at Jason Wilcox and seems to have missed. The most distracted of readers can see the irony here: a manager who frequently berated his squad for losing individual battles succumbing in the face of the intense pressure and formidable presence of one of the Premier League’s most intimidating football executives.

And frankly, this entire painful saga seems to paint Jason Wilcox in a whole new light. It may have been easy, given his brief stint of experience at Southampton, to regard him as little more than a drudge within the club's structure: a man whose appointment was due as much to his close relationship with ex-colleague a fellow executive rather than any verifiable talent. How wrong everyone was. In brilliantly outsmarting the club's celebrated manager, as he outmanoeuvred the hapless a previous executive earlier, Jason Wilcox has demonstrated to be among the sport’s true generals: a strategic mind that the club's competitors are now justifiably concerned.

A Tactical Conflict Over Formation and Ideology

To illustrate, this was Jason Wilcox who having been part of the hierarchy that hired the rigid 3-4-3 advocate Amorim originally, played a key role in trying to persuade him to abandon his favored formation. Naturally, these entreaties met a certain resistance. But perhaps such directives carry more weight when delivered from the mouth of a man the unimpeachable soccer background of Jason Wilcox, a veteran of three England caps and a role in a championship team decades past.

Maybe eventually Jason Wilcox might agree to outline his thought processes publicly. Perhaps at some point questions may arise why Amorim is departing with full compensation, without any compensation reduction clause in place. The director seldom speaks in public, for excellent reasons. The real thinkers in football – individuals such as him – simply operate at a level exceeding our prosaic understanding. Were he to speak, probably all we would hear is a series of high-frequency signals and four-dimensional whirring. Wanting is not quite equivalent to being ready to receive.

The Supreme Authority Behind 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, merely executing the directives of his line manager the billionaire owner, who privately has emphasized his preference for a four-man defense. It is reported, Ratcliffe has also proposed deploying the forward as a right wing-back. The owner is eager for the club to adopt data science and analytics. According to ESPN, during a leadership summit early in his investment, he declared that the team's approach to football “shall be determined in this room”.

Ultimately, Ratcliffe is an expert in this technical football matters, leveraging his previous experience in petrochemicals and yachting. Above all he is immensely wealthy, and it is known, the rich are the best of us: more insightful, sagacious, more tactically astute, simply superior. Whom else would you trust to manage a strategic plan of cost-cutting, the building of a modern arena that looks similar to an abstract design, the signing of a new striker?

A New Football Hierarchy: Directors Over Managers

This is a trend that is becoming prevalent in top-tier of the game. Historically, teams mistakenly delegated big footballing decisions to low-level employees like managers, scouts – players themselves. Perhaps it was once possible for an up-and-coming, visionary coach with ideas and drive to join an organization and see their vision through to completion. Yet how many businesses have these guys set up? How many mass redundancies have they managed? Better by far to invest the real power where it rightly belongs: the executive class, the casually dressed executives, the individuals with the jaw-dropping professional resumes. Better by far to determine the tactics by the directors and appoint someone who will adapt their offering accordingly. If coaches were once chefs, they have become more like delivery personnel: not responsible for the food, but still ultimately answerable should it be delivered cold or leaks out of the box.

Nowadays, a coach's role has become less about defining the vision and more about selling it: the receptionist on the front desk, the visible figurehead of an organisation they can do little to influence. Enzo Maresca leads a team of very young players into Europe and wins domestic cups, and effectively is dismissed for speaking out. A manager at Celtic finds his reputation ruined whereas the people who appointed him live to blunder indefinitely.

The Modern Corporate Game: Accountability Only for the Coaches

And possibly in a small way this is simply corporate governance in action: the rise of a gilded overclass who can never be wrong, whose decisions are always sacrosanct, whose mistakes can invariably be resolved by sacking without justification. Hire the system coach only to dismiss them for using excessively 3-4-3. Hire the process guy and then bin them for requiring excessive time. And most importantly be grateful; for the incremental season ticket price rises, for your new summer signings, for the reality that the grownups – regardless of their expertise – are in charge.