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Tbecame clear the manager endured a loss to lower-league opposition. He weathered losing a crucial continental showpiece versus a particularly poor Spurs sides for many years. He withstood home defeats against West Ham and Wolves, a lowly league position, his rigid approach, squandering some of the club’s best homegrown talent, a poor winning percentage, calling his team the poorest the club has ever seen. But there was a single opponent with whom the Portuguese coach was not permitted to dance. If you challenge the sporting director, and you best not miss.

Unfortunately, like many a Premiership right-back in Blackburn’s championship 1994-95 season, the coach came at the executive and seems to have failed. Even the most casual observer will notice the paradoxical situation: a manager who often railed his squad for losing one-on-one duels crumbling in the face of the white heat and animal charisma of one of England's top division's most feared football executives.

And frankly, this entire bruising episode appears to portray Jason Wilcox in a whole new light. It may have been easy, based on his brief stint in a similar role at Southampton, to view him as little more than a functionary in the United exoskeleton: an individual whose appointment was due as much to his friendship with ex-colleague Omar Berrada as any verifiable talent. How wrong everyone was. By masterfully outsmarting the club's celebrated head coach, as he outmanoeuvred the unfortunate Dan Ashworth before him, Jason Wilcox has demonstrated to be among the sport’s strategic masterminds: a tactical intellect of which the club's competitors will now be justifiably concerned.

The Tactical Conflict Over System & Ideology

For example, this was the director who having been part of the hierarchy that hired the 3-4-3 fundamentalist the coach originally, was instrumental in attempting to convince him to abandon his beloved formation. Unsurprisingly, these entreaties met a certain resistance. However, these judgements carry more weight when delivered from the mouth with the unimpeachable football pedigree of Jason Wilcox, holder of international appearances and a contributor to a championship team decades past.

Perhaps in time he may be persuaded to explain his reasoning publicly. Perhaps at some point questions may arise regarding why the coach is walking away with a full payout, with no penalty clause in place. The director speaks rarely in public, and with very good reason. The real thinkers in football – individuals such as him – simply operate at a level 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 prepared to receive.

An Ultimate Power In the Throne

But of course, in training our focus on Jason Wilcox we are obscuring the real power behind the club's current leadership. Jason Wilcox is, after all, merely executing 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 suggested deploying the forward in a wing-back role. The owner is eager for United to adopt data science and analytics. Per reports, in an executive meeting soon after his minority ownership, he declared that United’s style of play “shall be decided in this room”.

After all, Ratcliffe is an expert in these intricate footballing stuff, drawing from his background in petrochemicals and yachting. Above all he is incredibly rich, and as we all know, the rich are superior: more insightful, more wise, strategically brilliant, fundamentally superior. Who else could one trust to oversee a strategic plan of cost-cutting, the building of a modern arena that looks similar to someone’s leftover knitting, the acquisition of Benjamin Sesko?

A Modern Soccer Hierarchy: Executives Over Coaches

This is a trend we are increasingly seeing at the elite levels of the game. Historically, teams mistakenly entrusted major sporting choices to low-level employees such as coaches, talent spotters – even footballers. Perhaps it was once feasible for an up-and-coming, innovative manager with a philosophy and drive to go into a club and implement their plan supported to fruition. But how many companies have these guys set up? What number of mass redundancies have they overseen? Far preferable to place genuine authority where it belongs: the executive class, the open-necked shirt brigade, the guys with impressive LinkedIn profiles. It is wiser to decide the tactics by the directors and hire a coach who will adapt their methods accordingly. If coaches were once chefs, they have become more akin to delivery personnel: not creating the food, yet ultimately answerable should it be delivered cold or fails to meet standards.

In the meantime, their job has become less about crafting the philosophy and more about selling it: the receptionist on the front desk, the visible figurehead for a club they have minimal power to change. A coach at Chelsea takes a squad of literal children into Europe and secures domestic cups, and effectively gets sacked for speaking out. Wilfried Nancy finds his standing damaged while the people who appointed him live to blunder another day.

The Neoliberal Game: Accountability Only for the Few

And perhaps on some microcosmic level this is simply corporate governance in action: the elevation of a privileged elite who can never be wrong, whose decisions are always sacrosanct, whose mistakes can invariably be sacked away without explanation. Appoint the 3-4-3 coach and then fire him for using excessively 3-4-3. Bring in the project manager and later discard them for taking excessive time. And above all show gratitude; for the incremental season ticket price rises, for the latest summer signings, for the fact that the grownups – regardless of their expertise – are in charge.