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Transpired the manager could survive losing against lower-league opposition. Survive a decisive continental showpiece versus one of the worst Tottenham teams for many years. He withstood home defeats to domestic rivals, a lowly league position, his rigid approach, laying waste to some of the club’s best homegrown talent, the 32% win rate, labeling the squad the poorest in Manchester United history. Yet, there existed a single opponent with whom the Portuguese coach was not permitted to tango. You come at Jason Wilcox, and you best not miss.

Regrettably, similar to numerous top-flight right-back during Blackburn Rovers' championship 1994-95 season, the coach took on the executive and seems to have failed. Even the most casual observer can see the paradoxical situation: a coach who often railed his squad for losing individual battles succumbing in the face of the white heat and formidable presence of one of England's top division's most feared sporting directors.

And frankly, this entire bruising episode appears to portray the director in a whole new light. Perhaps it might have been tempting, based on his brief stint in a similar role at Southampton, to view him as merely a drudge in the United exoskeleton: a man whose appointment was due as much to his friendship with his former boss Omar Berrada rather than any demonstrable skill. How mistaken we all were. By masterfully outsmarting United’s feted head coach, as he outmanoeuvred the hapless a previous executive earlier, he has demonstrated as one of the sport’s strategic masterminds: a tactical intellect that the club's mid-table rivals will now be justifiably concerned.

The Tactical Conflict Regarding System & Ideology

For example, it was the director who being involved in the hierarchy that hired the 3-4-3 fundamentalist Amorim originally, played a key role in trying to persuade Amorim to ditch his favored 3-4-3. Naturally, these pleas were resisted. But perhaps these judgements carry more weight when delivered by a man of a man the unimpeachable football pedigree of Jason Wilcox, a veteran of three England caps and a contributor to a championship team from 31 years ago.

Maybe eventually he may be persuaded to explain his reasoning to the rest of us. Maybe one day he might be asked regarding why the coach is walking away with a full payout, without any compensation reduction clause activated. But Jason Wilcox seldom speaks publicly, and with very good reason. The true intellectuals of this sport – men like Jason Wilcox – function on a plane exceeding our mundane comprehension. Were he to speak, most likely all we would hear would be high-frequency signals and complex calculations. Wanting is not the same as being prepared to receive.

An Supreme Power In the Throne

Naturally, in training our focus on the sporting director we are obscuring 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, the owner has also proposed playing Bryan Mbeumo in a wing-back role. The owner is eager for United to embrace data science and analytics. According to ESPN, during a leadership summit early in his minority ownership, he announced that United’s style of play “shall be determined by this group”.

After all, Ratcliffe is a specialist in this technical footballing stuff, leveraging his background in petrochemicals and yachting. Most importantly he remains immensely wealthy, and as we all know, the rich are the best of us: more perceptive, sagacious, more tactically astute, simply superior. Who else could one trust to oversee an enlightened programme of cost-cutting, the construction of a new stadium that appears similar to an abstract design, the signing of Benjamin Sesko?

The New Soccer Hierarchy: Executives Above Coaches

This represents a shift that is becoming prevalent in top-tier football. For decades, clubs foolishly entrusted major sporting choices to subordinate staff like managers, scouts – players themselves. Maybe previously possible for an up-and-coming, innovative manager with ideas and energy to go into an organization and implement their plan supported to fruition. But how many companies have such individuals established? How many mass redundancies have they overseen? Better by far to place the real power where it rightly belongs: the leadership tier, the open-necked shirt brigade, the guys with impressive LinkedIn profiles. Better by far to determine the strategy in the boardroom and appoint someone who can tailor their offering to suit. If coaches were formerly chefs, they have become more akin to delivery personnel: not responsible for the product, but still finally accountable if it arrives poorly or leaks out to meet standards.

In the meantime, their job is increasingly not about defining the vision and more about selling it: the receptionist on the front desk, the public face of an organisation they can do little to influence. Enzo Maresca takes a squad of very young players into the Champions League and wins two medium-sized trophies, and effectively is dismissed for speaking out. Wilfried Nancy sees his standing damaged whereas those individuals who appointed him live to blunder indefinitely.

The Modern Corporate Football: Responsibility Only for the Few

And possibly on some microcosmic level this is simply corporate governance at work: the rise of a gilded overclass who are infallible, whose decisions remain sacrosanct, whose mistakes can invariably be sacked away without justification. Hire the 3-4-3 coach and then dismiss them for playing excessively 3-4-3. Bring in the project manager and later discard them for requiring too long. And above all show gratitude; for your modest season ticket price rises, for the latest summer signings, for the fact that the grownups – however well qualified – are in charge.