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Transpired he was able to withstand defeat by Grimsby. Survive losing a crucial continental showpiece against a particularly poor Tottenham teams for many years. He withstood home defeats to domestic rivals, a lowly league position, the tactical inflexibility, laying waste to the team's most promising academy products, a poor winning percentage, calling his team the worst the club has ever seen. Yet, there existed one adversary with whom Ruben Amorim would not be allowed to dance. You come at the sporting director, you had better succeed.

Unfortunately, similar to numerous top-flight defender in Blackburn’s championship 1994-95 season, Amorim took on the executive and appears to have missed. The most distracted of readers will notice the irony here: a coach who often railed at his players for failing in individual battles succumbing 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 the director in a different perspective. It may have been tempting, based on his brief stint in a similar role with the Saints, to view Jason Wilcox as merely a drudge within the club's structure: an individual who owed his position as much to his friendship with ex-colleague a fellow executive rather than any verifiable talent. How mistaken we all were. In brilliantly outsmarting United’s feted head coach, just as he bested the unfortunate a previous executive earlier, he has demonstrated to be among football's true generals: a tactical intellect of which United’s mid-table rivals will now be rightly wary.

A Strategic Conflict Over System & Ideology

For example, this was Jason Wilcox who being involved in the leadership that appointed the 3-4-3 fundamentalist Amorim originally, was instrumental in attempting to convince Amorim to ditch his beloved 3-4-3. Unsurprisingly, these entreaties were resisted. However, these judgements hold greater authority when issued from the mouth of a man the impeccable football pedigree of Jason Wilcox, a veteran of international appearances and a role in a title-winning side decades past.

Perhaps in time he may be persuaded to explain his thought processes to the rest of us. Perhaps at some point questions may arise why Amorim is departing with a full payout, without any compensation reduction clause activated. The director seldom speaks publicly, for excellent reasons. The true intellectuals in football – individuals such as Jason Wilcox – function on a plane beyond our own mundane comprehension. 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 equivalent to being prepared to comprehend it.

The Supreme Power Behind the Throne

But of course, in training our focus on the sporting director we are obscuring the true genius behind the modern United throne. The director is, after all, merely executing the directives of his line manager the billionaire owner, who privately has made very clear his desire for a four-man defense. According to reports, the owner has also suggested deploying the forward as a right wing-back. Ratcliffe is keen for the club to embrace data science and analytics. According to ESPN, during a leadership summit early in his minority ownership, he declared that United’s style to football “shall be decided by this group”.

After all, Ratcliffe is a specialist in this technical footballing stuff, leveraging his background in industry and yachting. Most importantly he is incredibly rich, and as we all know, the wealthy are the best of us: more perceptive, more wise, strategically brilliant, simply better. Whom else would you trust to manage an enlightened programme of austerity, the construction of a modern arena that appears similar to someone’s leftover knitting, the signing of Benjamin Sesko?

The Modern Football Hierarchy: Executives Above Managers

This represents a shift that is becoming prevalent at the elite levels of the game. For decades, clubs foolishly entrusted major sporting choices to low-level employees like managers, talent spotters – even footballers. Perhaps it was once feasible for a young, visionary coach with ideas and energy to go into an organization and implement their plan supported to fruition. Yet how many companies have these guys set up? What number of mass redundancies have they overseen? Far preferable to place genuine authority where it rightly belongs: the leadership tier, the casually dressed executives, the individuals with impressive professional resumes. Better by far to determine the strategy by the directors and appoint a coach who will adapt their offering to suit. If coaches were once chefs, they have become more like Deliveroo drivers: not creating the food, yet finally accountable if it arrives cold or fails of the box.

Nowadays, a coach's role is increasingly less about defining the vision and more about marketing it: the front-facing representative of the operation, the public face of an organisation they can do little to influence. A coach at Chelsea leads a team of very young players into the Champions League and wins two medium-sized trophies, and essentially is dismissed for speaking out. A manager at Celtic sees his reputation ruined whereas the people who hired him continue to make errors indefinitely.

The Modern Corporate Football: Responsibility for the Few

And possibly on some microcosmic level this is simply corporate governance at work: the rise of a gilded overclass who are infallible, whose choices are always untouchable, whose errors can always be sacked away without explanation. Appoint the system coach only to fire them for using too much that system. Hire the process guy and then discard them for taking excessive time. And above all be grateful; for your modest increases in ticket costs, for the latest summer signings, for the fact that the grownups – however well qualified – remain in control.