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Tbecame clear he endured defeat by lower-league opposition. Survive losing a crucial European final versus a particularly poor Tottenham teams for many years. He withstood losing at home to West Ham and Wolves, a lowly league position, the tactical inflexibility, squandering some of the club’s best academy products, the 32% win rate, calling the squad the poorest the club has ever seen. But there was one adversary with whom the Portuguese coach would not be allowed to engage. If you challenge Jason Wilcox, and you best not miss.

Regrettably, similar to numerous Premiership right-back during Blackburn Rovers' championship campaign, the coach took on Jason Wilcox and appears to have missed. Even the most distracted of readers can see the irony here: a coach who often railed his squad for losing individual battles succumbing when confronted by the intense pressure and animal charisma of one of England's top division's most intimidating football executives.

In truth, this entire painful saga appears to portray the director in a whole new light. Perhaps it might have been tempting, given his brief stint in a similar role at Southampton, to view Jason Wilcox as little more than a drudge in the United exoskeleton: a man whose appointment was due largely to his friendship with ex-colleague Omar Berrada as any demonstrable skill. How wrong we all were. By masterfully outsmarting United’s feted head coach, just as he bested the hapless a previous executive before him, Jason Wilcox has demonstrated to be among football's true generals: a tactical intellect of which United’s mid-table rivals will now be justifiably concerned.

A Strategic Clash Over Formation & Ideology

For example, it was Jason Wilcox , after having been part of the hierarchy that appointed the 3-4-3 fundamentalist the coach originally, was instrumental in attempting to convince him to ditch his beloved formation. Unsurprisingly, these pleas were resisted. However, such directives hold greater authority when issued from the mouth with the unimpeachable soccer background of Jason Wilcox, holder of three England caps and a role in a title-winning side decades past.

Maybe eventually Jason Wilcox may be persuaded to outline his reasoning to the rest of us. Perhaps at some point questions may arise regarding why the coach is departing with full compensation, without any penalty clause activated. The director speaks rarely publicly, and with very good reason. The real thinkers in football – individuals such as Jason Wilcox – function at a level exceeding our prosaic understanding. If he ever did speak, most likely all we would hear is a series of high-frequency signals and four-dimensional whirring. Desiring an explanation is not quite the same as being prepared to receive.

The Supreme Power Behind the Throne

Naturally, by focusing our attention on the sporting director we are obscuring the true genius behind the club's current leadership. Jason Wilcox is, after all, simply carrying out the commands of his superior the billionaire owner, who in private has emphasized his preference for a four-man defense. According to reports, the owner has also proposed playing Bryan Mbeumo as a right wing-back. The owner is eager for the club to embrace data science and metrics. According to ESPN, during a leadership summit soon after his investment, he announced that United’s style of play “shall be determined by this group”.

Ultimately, Ratcliffe is an expert in these intricate footballing stuff, leveraging his background in petrochemicals and yachting. Most importantly he remains immensely wealthy, and as we all know, the wealthy 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 new stadium that appears a lot like someone’s leftover knitting, the signing of Benjamin Sesko?

The New Soccer Order: Executives Over Managers

This is a trend we are increasingly seeing in top-tier football. For decades, clubs foolishly entrusted big footballing decisions to low-level employees such as coaches, talent spotters – players themselves. Maybe previously possible for a young, innovative manager with ideas and energy to go into a club and see their vision through to completion. Yet how many businesses have such individuals established? What number of large-scale layoffs have they managed? Better by far to place genuine authority where it rightly belongs: the executive class, the casually dressed executives, the individuals with impressive LinkedIn profiles. Better by far to determine the tactics by the directors and appoint someone who will adapt their methods to suit. If coaches were formerly chefs, they have become more akin to Deliveroo drivers: not really creating the product, but still finally accountable should it be delivered cold or fails to meet standards.

In the meantime, their job has become less about defining the vision and more about selling it: the front-facing representative of the operation, the visible figurehead of an organisation they can do little to change. A coach at Chelsea leads a team of very young players into the Champions League and wins two medium-sized trophies, and effectively is dismissed for speaking out. A manager at Celtic finds his reputation ruined whereas those individuals who appointed him live to blunder another day.

The Neoliberal Game: Responsibility Only for the Coaches

And possibly on some microcosmic level this represents corporate governance in action: the elevation of a privileged overclass who are infallible, whose decisions are always untouchable, whose errors can always be resolved by sacking without justification. Hire the 3-4-3 coach only to dismiss him for playing excessively 3-4-3. Bring in the process guy and then bin them for taking too long. And above all be grateful; for your modest increases in ticket costs, for your new player acquisitions, for the fact that the grownups – regardless of their expertise – remain in control.