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Turns out the manager could survive losing against lower-league opposition. He weathered a decisive continental showpiece against a particularly poor Spurs sides for many years. He withstood home defeats against West Ham and Wolves, a lowly league position, his rigid approach, laying waste to some of the club’s best homegrown talent, the 32% win rate, calling his team the worst the club has ever seen. But there was one adversary against whom the Portuguese coach would not be allowed to tango. If you challenge Jason Wilcox, and you best not miss.

Regrettably, similar to numerous top-flight right-back in Blackburn’s title-winning campaign, Amorim came at the executive and seems to have failed. The most casual observer will notice the irony here: a manager who frequently berated his squad for losing one-on-one duels crumbling when confronted by the white heat and formidable presence of one of the Premier League’s most intimidating sporting directors.

And frankly, this entire painful saga seems to paint the director in a whole new light. Perhaps it might have been tempting, based on his brief stint of experience with the Saints, to view him as little more than a drudge in the United exoskeleton: an individual who owed his position largely to his close relationship with ex-colleague a fellow executive rather than any demonstrable skill. How mistaken everyone was. By masterfully outsmarting United’s feted manager, just as he bested the hapless Dan Ashworth before him, he has demonstrated as one of the sport’s true generals: a strategic mind of which the club's mid-table rivals are now rightly wary.

A Strategic Conflict Regarding System and Philosophy

To illustrate, this was Jason Wilcox , after having been part of the leadership that hired the 3-4-3 fundamentalist Amorim originally, played a key role in trying to persuade him to ditch his beloved 3-4-3. Unsurprisingly, these pleas were resisted. But perhaps these judgements hold greater authority when delivered by a man of a man the impeccable football pedigree he possesses, a veteran of international appearances and a contributor to a title-winning side decades past.

Maybe eventually he may be persuaded to outline his reasoning to the rest of us. Maybe one day questions may arise why Amorim is departing with a full payout, with no penalty clause in place. The director seldom speaks publicly, for excellent reasons. The real thinkers of this sport – men like Jason Wilcox – function on a plane exceeding our mundane comprehension. 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 the same as being ready to receive.

An Ultimate Power In Command

Naturally, in training our focus on Jason Wilcox we overlook the true genius behind the modern United throne. The director is, in reality, merely executing the directives of his ultimate superior Sir Jim Ratcliffe, who in private has emphasized his preference for a four-man defense. According to reports, Ratcliffe has also proposed deploying the forward in a wing-back role. Ratcliffe is keen for United to adopt data science and analytics. According to ESPN, during a leadership summit early in his investment, he announced that the team's approach of play “shall be determined in this room”.

After all, Ratcliffe is an expert in this technical football matters, drawing from his previous experience in petrochemicals and sailing. Above all he is immensely wealthy, and it is known, the wealthy are superior: more perceptive, more wise, more tactically astute, fundamentally better. Whom else could one trust to oversee an enlightened programme of austerity, the building of a new stadium that appears similar to someone’s leftover knitting, the acquisition of a new striker?

A Modern Football Order: Executives Above Managers

This represents a shift we are increasingly seeing in top-tier football. Historically, teams mistakenly delegated major sporting choices to subordinate staff such as coaches, talent spotters – even footballers. Maybe previously possible for a young, visionary coach with a philosophy and drive to go into an organization and implement their plan supported to fruition. Yet how many businesses have such individuals set up? What number of large-scale layoffs have they managed? Better by far to place the real power where it belongs: the executive class, the open-necked shirt brigade, the individuals with the jaw-dropping professional resumes. It is wiser to determine the strategy in the boardroom and hire someone who will adapt their offering accordingly. If coaches were once chefs, they have become more like delivery personnel: not creating the food, yet finally accountable should it be delivered poorly or leaks out of the box.

In the meantime, a coach's role is increasingly not about defining the vision and more about selling it: the front-facing representative on the front desk, the public face for a club they can do little to influence. A coach at Chelsea leads a team of literal children into Europe and wins domestic cups, and essentially is dismissed for speaking out. A manager at Celtic finds his reputation ruined whereas the people who hired him continue to make errors indefinitely.

A Modern Corporate Football: Accountability for the Coaches

And perhaps in a small way this is simply neoliberalism in action: the elevation of a privileged overclass who can never be wrong, whose decisions are always sacrosanct, whose errors can invariably be sacked away without justification. Hire the 3-4-3 coach only to fire them for playing excessively that system. Hire the project manager and then bin them for requiring excessive time. And most importantly show gratitude; for the incremental increases in ticket costs, for the latest summer signings, for the fact that the adults – regardless of their expertise – remain in control.