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Itranspired Ruben Amorim endured a loss to Grimsby. He weathered a decisive European final versus one of the worst Tottenham teams in living memory. He withstood losing at home to domestic rivals, a lowly league position, his rigid approach, undermining some of the club’s most promising academy products, the 32% win rate, calling the squad the worst in Manchester United history. Yet, there existed one adversary with whom Ruben Amorim was not permitted to engage. If you challenge the sporting director, you had better succeed.

Unfortunately, like many a top-flight right-back during Blackburn Rovers' title-winning 1994-95 season, Amorim took on the executive and appears to have missed. The most casual observer can see the paradoxical situation: a manager who frequently berated his squad for losing individual battles crumbling in the face of the intense pressure 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. It may have been tempting, based on his nine months of experience at Southampton, to view him as little more than a functionary within the club's structure: a man whose appointment was due as much to his close relationship with his former boss a fellow executive rather than any demonstrable skill. How mistaken we all were. By masterfully outsmarting United’s feted head coach, just as he bested the hapless Dan Ashworth before him, he has demonstrated to be among football's true generals: a strategic mind of which United’s mid-table rivals will now be justifiably concerned.

A Strategic Conflict Over System & Ideology

For example, this was the director , after having been part of the hierarchy that appointed the 3-4-3 fundamentalist Amorim in the first place, played a key role in trying to persuade Amorim to abandon his favored 3-4-3. Naturally, these pleas faced pushback. But perhaps such directives carry more weight when issued by a man with the unimpeachable soccer background of Jason Wilcox, holder of three England caps and a role in a championship team decades past.

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 departing with full compensation, without any compensation reduction clause activated. But Jason Wilcox speaks rarely publicly, and with very good reason. The true intellectuals in football – men like Jason Wilcox – simply operate at a level beyond our own mundane comprehension. If he ever did speak, most likely we would perceive would be ultrasonic blips and complex calculations. Wanting is not equivalent to being prepared to comprehend it.

An Supreme Power In the Throne

Naturally, in training our focus on the sporting director we overlook the true genius behind the club's current leadership. Jason Wilcox is, after all, simply carrying out the commands of his line manager the billionaire owner, who privately has emphasized his preference for a back four. It is reported, the owner has also suggested playing Bryan Mbeumo in a wing-back role. The owner is eager for the club to adopt analytics and metrics. Per reports, during a leadership summit soon after his minority ownership, he announced that United’s style of play “will be decided in this room”.

Ultimately, Sir Jim is a specialist in these intricate footballing stuff, drawing from his background in petrochemicals and yachting. Above all he remains incredibly rich, and it is known, the wealthy are superior: more perceptive, more wise, more tactically astute, fundamentally superior. Who else would you trust to oversee a strategic plan of cost-cutting, the building of a new stadium that looks similar to an abstract design, the signing of Benjamin Sesko?

The New Football Order: Executives Above Managers

This represents a shift that is becoming prevalent at the elite levels of the game. For decades, clubs foolishly delegated major sporting choices to low-level employees such as coaches, scouts – players themselves. Perhaps it was once feasible for a young, visionary coach with a philosophy and energy to join a club and implement their plan through to completion. But how many companies have these guys established? What number of mass redundancies have they managed? Far preferable to invest genuine authority where it rightly belongs: the executive class, the casually dressed executives, the guys with impressive LinkedIn profiles. Better by far to decide the tactics by the directors and hire a coach who will adapt their methods accordingly. If coaches were formerly chefs, they have become more like Deliveroo drivers: not responsible for the product, but still finally accountable should it be delivered poorly or fails 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 of the operation, the visible figurehead of an organisation they have minimal power to influence. A coach at Chelsea leads a team of very young players into Europe and wins two medium-sized trophies, and essentially gets sacked for speaking out. A manager at Celtic sees his standing damaged while those individuals who hired him live to blunder indefinitely.

The Neoliberal Game: Accountability Only for the Few

And perhaps in a small way this represents neoliberalism in action: the rise of a gilded elite who can never be wrong, whose decisions are always sacrosanct, whose errors can invariably be resolved by sacking without justification. Hire the system coach only to dismiss him for playing too much 3-4-3. Bring in the process guy and then bin them for taking too long. And most importantly be grateful; for the incremental increases in ticket costs, for your new player acquisitions, for the reality that the grownups – however well qualified – are in charge.