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Iturns out the manager endured defeat by Grimsby. Survive losing a crucial European final versus a particularly poor Tottenham teams for many years. He withstood home defeats against domestic rivals, a lowly league position, the tactical inflexibility, laying waste to some of the club’s most promising homegrown talent, the 32% win rate, labeling his team the worst the club has ever seen. Yet, there existed a single opponent with whom the Portuguese coach would not be allowed to engage. You come at the sporting director, and you best not miss.

Unfortunately, similar to numerous top-flight defender in Blackburn’s championship 1994-95 season, the coach took on the executive and appears to have missed. Even the most casual observer can see the irony here: a manager who frequently berated at his players for losing one-on-one duels crumbling when confronted by the intense pressure and formidable presence of a the Premier League’s most feared sporting directors.

And frankly, this entire bruising episode appears to portray the director in a whole new light. It may have been easy, based on his brief stint of experience at Southampton, to regard Jason Wilcox as merely a drudge within the club's structure: an individual whose appointment was due largely to his close relationship with ex-colleague a fellow executive as any demonstrable skill. How mistaken we all were. By masterfully outsmarting the club's celebrated head coach, just as he bested the hapless Dan Ashworth before him, Jason Wilcox has demonstrated as one of football's strategic masterminds: a strategic mind that United’s mid-table rivals will now be rightly wary.

A Strategic Clash Regarding Formation and Philosophy

For example, this was Jason Wilcox , after having been part of the hierarchy that hired the 3-4-3 fundamentalist the coach in the first place, was instrumental in attempting to convince him to abandon his beloved formation. Naturally, these pleas faced pushback. However, such directives carry more weight when issued from the mouth of a man the unimpeachable soccer background of Jason Wilcox, holder of three England caps and a contributor to a championship team from 31 years ago.

Maybe eventually Jason Wilcox might agree to explain his thought processes to the rest of us. Perhaps at some point he might be asked regarding why the coach is departing with full compensation, without any penalty clause activated. The director seldom speaks publicly, for excellent reasons. The true intellectuals in football – individuals such as Jason Wilcox – function at a level beyond our own prosaic understanding. If he ever did speak, probably all we would hear is a series of high-frequency signals and four-dimensional whirring. Desiring an explanation is not equivalent to being ready to receive.

An Supreme Authority In the Throne

Naturally, by focusing our attention on Jason Wilcox we overlook the real power behind the modern United throne. The director is, after all, merely executing the directives of his ultimate superior the billionaire owner, who privately has made very clear his preference for a four-man defense. According to reports, Ratcliffe has also proposed deploying the forward in a wing-back role. The owner is eager for the club to embrace analytics and analytics. According to ESPN, in an executive meeting soon after his minority ownership, he declared that the team's approach to football “shall be decided by this group”.

Ultimately, Sir Jim is a specialist in this technical footballing stuff, drawing from his previous experience in petrochemicals and sailing. Most importantly he remains immensely wealthy, and as we all know, the rich are superior: more perceptive, sagacious, strategically brilliant, simply better. Whom else would you trust to manage an enlightened programme of austerity, the building of a modern arena that looks similar to someone’s leftover knitting, the signing of Benjamin Sesko?

A Modern Football Hierarchy: Executives Over Coaches

This is a trend we are increasingly seeing at the elite levels football. For decades, clubs foolishly entrusted major sporting choices to low-level employees like managers, talent spotters – players themselves. Perhaps it was once feasible for a young, innovative manager with ideas and energy to go into a club and see their vision through to completion. Yet how many companies have these guys established? What number of large-scale layoffs have they overseen? Far preferable to place genuine authority where it belongs: the leadership tier, the casually dressed executives, the individuals with the jaw-dropping professional resumes. It is wiser to decide the strategy in the boardroom and hire a coach who can tailor their offering accordingly. If coaches were once chefs, they are now more like delivery personnel: not responsible for the food, yet finally accountable if it arrives poorly or leaks out to meet standards.

In the meantime, a coach's role has become less about defining the vision and more about marketing it: the receptionist of the operation, the public face for a club they can do little to influence. Enzo Maresca takes a squad of very young players into the Champions League and wins domestic cups, and effectively is dismissed for speaking out. A manager at Celtic finds his standing damaged whereas the people who appointed him continue to make errors another day.

The Neoliberal Football: Responsibility for the Few

And perhaps on some microcosmic level this is simply corporate governance at work: the rise of a gilded overclass who can never be wrong, whose choices are always sacrosanct, whose mistakes can always be sacked away without justification. Appoint the system coach and then fire him for playing too much that system. Bring in the process guy and later bin him for taking too long. And most importantly be grateful; for the incremental increases in ticket costs, for the latest player acquisitions, for the reality that the grownups – regardless of their expertise – remain in control.