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Iturns out he was able to withstand losing against lower-league opposition. He weathered an important European final versus a particularly poor Spurs sides in living memory. He could survive home defeats to domestic rivals, a lowly league position, the tactical inflexibility, squandering some of the club’s most promising homegrown talent, the 32% win rate, labeling his team the poorest 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, you had better succeed.

Unfortunately, like many a top-flight right-back in Blackburn’s championship 1994-95 season, Amorim took on the executive and seems to have failed. Even the most distracted of readers will notice the irony here: a coach who frequently berated his squad for losing one-on-one duels succumbing when confronted by the intense pressure and formidable presence of one of England's top division's most intimidating football executives.

And frankly, this whole bruising episode appears to portray Jason Wilcox in a whole new light. Perhaps it might have been tempting, based on his nine months in a similar role at Southampton, to regard him as merely a drudge within the club's structure: a man whose appointment was due as much to his friendship with his former boss Omar Berrada rather than any demonstrable skill. How wrong everyone was. In brilliantly outsmarting the club's celebrated manager, as he outmanoeuvred the unfortunate Dan Ashworth before him, Jason Wilcox has proved himself to be among football's true generals: a tactical intellect that United’s competitors are now justifiably concerned.

The Tactical Clash Over Formation & Ideology

For example, it was the director who being involved in the leadership that hired the 3-4-3 fundamentalist Amorim originally, played a key role in trying to persuade him to abandon his beloved formation. Unsurprisingly, these entreaties met a certain resistance. But perhaps these judgements carry more weight when delivered from the mouth of a man the impeccable soccer background of Jason Wilcox, holder of international appearances and a contributor to a championship team from 31 years ago.

Perhaps in time he might agree to explain his reasoning to the rest of us. Maybe one day questions may arise why Amorim is departing with full compensation, with no penalty clause in place. The director speaks rarely in public, and with very good reason. The true intellectuals of this sport – individuals such as him – simply operate on a plane exceeding our prosaic understanding. Were he to speak, probably all we would hear would be high-frequency signals and four-dimensional whirring. Desiring an explanation is not the same as being ready to comprehend it.

An Supreme Authority In Command

But of course, in training our focus on Jason Wilcox we are obscuring the true genius behind the modern United throne. Jason Wilcox is, after all, merely executing the directives of his line manager the billionaire owner, who in private has made very clear his preference for a back four. According to reports, Ratcliffe has also proposed deploying the forward as a right wing-back. The owner is eager for the club to embrace analytics and metrics. According to ESPN, during a leadership summit soon after his minority ownership, he declared that the team's approach to football “will 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 wealthy are the best of us: more perceptive, more wise, more tactically astute, fundamentally better. Whom else could one trust to manage an enlightened programme of cost-cutting, the building of a modern arena that appears similar to someone’s leftover knitting, the signing of a new striker?

A Modern Football Hierarchy: Directors Above Managers

This is a trend that is becoming prevalent at the elite levels football. For decades, teams mistakenly entrusted big footballing decisions to low-level employees such as coaches, scouts – even footballers. Perhaps it was once feasible for an up-and-coming, visionary coach with ideas and energy to join an organization and see their vision through to completion. But how many companies have such individuals established? What number of large-scale layoffs have they managed? Far preferable to invest genuine authority where it rightly belongs: the leadership tier, the open-necked shirt brigade, the guys with the jaw-dropping professional resumes. Better by far to determine the tactics in the boardroom and appoint someone who can tailor their offering to suit. If managers were once chefs, they are now more like delivery personnel: not really responsible for the product, but still finally accountable if it arrives poorly or fails of the box.

Nowadays, a coach's role is increasingly not about crafting the philosophy and more about selling it: the front-facing representative on the front desk, the visible figurehead of an organisation they have minimal power to change. A coach at Chelsea takes a squad of very young players into Europe and secures two medium-sized trophies, and effectively is dismissed for talking. A manager at Celtic finds his standing damaged while the people who appointed him live to blunder another day.

The Modern Corporate Football: Accountability for the Coaches

And possibly on some microcosmic level this represents corporate governance in action: the elevation of a gilded elite who can never be wrong, whose decisions are always sacrosanct, whose mistakes can always be sacked away without justification. Hire the 3-4-3 coach and then fire them for playing too much 3-4-3. Bring in the project manager and then discard him for taking excessive time. And most importantly show gratitude; for the incremental increases in ticket costs, for your new player acquisitions, for the reality that the grownups – regardless of their expertise – are in charge.