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Turns out the manager was able to withstand losing against lower-league opposition. Survive losing a crucial continental showpiece against a particularly poor Tottenham teams for many years. He could survive home defeats to West Ham and Wolves, finishing 15th, the tactical inflexibility, squandering some of the club’s best academy products, a poor winning percentage, calling his team the worst the club has ever seen. But there was a single opponent with whom the Portuguese coach was not permitted to tango. If you challenge the sporting director, and you best not miss.

Unfortunately, similar to numerous top-flight right-back in Blackburn’s title-winning campaign, the coach came at the executive and seems to have missed. Even the most casual observer can see the paradoxical situation: a coach who frequently berated at his players for failing in individual battles crumbling in the face of the intense pressure and animal charisma of one of England's top division's most intimidating football executives.

In truth, this whole painful saga seems to paint the director in a whole new light. Perhaps it might have been tempting, given his brief stint in a similar role at Southampton, 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 his former boss Omar Berrada rather than any demonstrable skill. How mistaken everyone was. In brilliantly outmanoeuvring the club's celebrated head coach, as he outmanoeuvred the hapless Dan Ashworth before him, he has demonstrated as one of the sport’s strategic masterminds: a tactical intellect that the club's competitors are now rightly wary.

The Strategic Clash Over Formation and Ideology

For example, this was the director , after being involved in the leadership that hired the 3-4-3 fundamentalist Amorim in the first place, was instrumental in attempting to convince him to ditch his beloved 3-4-3. Unsurprisingly, these pleas were resisted. But perhaps such directives carry more weight when issued from the mouth with the impeccable soccer background of Jason Wilcox, a veteran of three England caps and a role in a title-winning side from 31 years ago.

Perhaps in time he might agree to outline his reasoning publicly. Maybe one day questions may arise regarding why the coach is walking away with a full payout, with no penalty clause in place. But Jason Wilcox speaks rarely in public, for excellent reasons. The true intellectuals in football – individuals such as him – function at a level beyond our own mundane comprehension. Were he to speak, probably we would perceive would be ultrasonic blips and complex calculations. Desiring an explanation is not the same as being ready to receive.

An Ultimate Power In the Throne

But of course, in training our focus on the sporting director we are obscuring the true genius behind the modern United throne. The director is, in reality, merely executing the directives of his ultimate superior the billionaire owner, who privately has emphasized his desire for a four-man defense. According to reports, Ratcliffe has also suggested playing Bryan Mbeumo as a right wing-back. Ratcliffe is keen for United to adopt analytics and analytics. Per reports, in an executive meeting early in his investment, he announced that the team's approach to football “will be decided in this room”.

After all, Ratcliffe is a specialist in this technical footballing stuff, drawing from his background in industry and sailing. Most importantly he remains incredibly rich, and as we all know, the wealthy are the best of us: more perceptive, more wise, more tactically astute, fundamentally superior. Whom else would you trust to manage a strategic plan of austerity, the building of a modern arena that looks a lot like an abstract design, the signing of a new striker?

A Modern Football Order: Directors Over Managers

This is a trend we are increasingly seeing in top-tier of the game. For decades, clubs foolishly delegated major sporting choices to low-level employees like managers, talent spotters – players themselves. Maybe previously possible for a young, visionary coach with ideas and energy to join an organization and see their vision supported to fruition. Yet how many companies have such individuals set up? How many mass redundancies have they managed? Far preferable to place genuine authority where it rightly belongs: the executive class, the open-necked shirt brigade, the guys with impressive professional resumes. It is wiser to determine the tactics by the directors and hire someone who will adapt their offering accordingly. If managers were formerly chefs, they are now more akin to Deliveroo drivers: not really creating the food, yet ultimately answerable should it be delivered cold 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 have minimal power to influence. Enzo Maresca leads a team of very young players into Europe and wins two medium-sized trophies, and effectively gets sacked for speaking out. A manager at Celtic sees his standing damaged whereas those individuals who appointed him continue to make errors indefinitely.

A Neoliberal Football: Responsibility Only for the Few

And perhaps on some microcosmic level this represents neoliberalism at work: the elevation of a gilded overclass who are infallible, whose decisions are always sacrosanct, whose errors can invariably be resolved by sacking without justification. Hire the system coach and then fire them for using excessively that system. Hire the project manager and later discard him for taking too long. And above all show gratitude; for your modest season ticket price rises, for your new summer signings, for the fact that the grownups – however well qualified – are in charge.