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Turns out Ruben Amorim endured a loss to lower-league opposition. Survive a decisive continental showpiece versus one of the worst Spurs sides for many years. He withstood home defeats against domestic rivals, finishing 15th, his rigid approach, laying waste to the team's best homegrown talent, a poor winning percentage, calling the squad the poorest the club has ever seen. But there was a single opponent with whom Ruben Amorim would not be allowed to dance. If you challenge the sporting director, you had better succeed.

Unfortunately, like many a top-flight right-back in Blackburn’s championship campaign, Amorim came at the executive and seems to have failed. Even the most distracted of readers will notice the irony here: a coach who often railed his squad for failing in individual battles crumbling in the face of the white heat and formidable presence of a England's top division's most intimidating sporting directors.

And frankly, this entire painful saga appears to portray the director in a different perspective. Perhaps it might have been easy, based on his nine months of experience with the Saints, to regard him as little more than a drudge in the United exoskeleton: a man whose appointment was due largely to his close relationship with his former boss Omar Berrada rather than any verifiable talent. How mistaken everyone was. In brilliantly outsmarting the club's celebrated manager, just as he bested the hapless a previous executive before him, Jason Wilcox has demonstrated as one of the sport’s strategic masterminds: a tactical intellect that the club's competitors are now justifiably concerned.

The Tactical Conflict Over System & Philosophy

To illustrate, this was Jason Wilcox , after being involved in the hierarchy that appointed the rigid 3-4-3 advocate the coach originally, played a key role in trying to persuade him to abandon his favored formation. Unsurprisingly, these pleas met a certain resistance. But perhaps such directives hold greater authority when issued by a man of a man the unimpeachable soccer background of Jason Wilcox, holder of international appearances and a role in a championship team decades past.

Perhaps in time he might agree to explain his thought processes publicly. Perhaps at some point questions may arise regarding why the coach is walking away with full compensation, with no penalty clause in place. The director speaks rarely publicly, for excellent reasons. The true intellectuals of this sport – men like Jason Wilcox – simply operate on a plane exceeding our mundane comprehension. If he ever did speak, probably all we would hear is a series of high-frequency signals and complex calculations. Wanting is not equivalent to being ready to receive.

An Ultimate Power In the Throne

Naturally, in training our focus on Jason Wilcox we overlook the true genius behind the club's current leadership. Jason Wilcox is, in reality, simply carrying out the commands of his ultimate superior the billionaire owner, who privately has made very clear his desire for a four-man defense. It is reported, the owner has also proposed playing Bryan Mbeumo in a wing-back role. Ratcliffe is keen for the club to embrace analytics and metrics. Per reports, during a leadership summit soon after his minority ownership, he declared that the team's approach of play “will be determined in this room”.

After all, Ratcliffe is an expert in these intricate football matters, leveraging his background in petrochemicals and sailing. Most importantly he is incredibly rich, and it is known, the rich are superior: more perceptive, more wise, strategically brilliant, fundamentally superior. Whom else would you trust to manage a strategic plan of austerity, the building of a new stadium that appears similar to someone’s leftover knitting, the signing of Benjamin Sesko?

A New Soccer Hierarchy: Directors Over Managers

This is a trend we are increasingly seeing at the elite levels of the game. For decades, clubs foolishly entrusted major sporting choices to subordinate staff such as coaches, scouts – even footballers. Maybe previously feasible for an up-and-coming, visionary coach with ideas and energy to go into a club and implement their plan supported to fruition. Yet how many companies have these guys set up? What number of large-scale layoffs have they managed? Better by far to place genuine authority where it belongs: the leadership tier, the casually dressed executives, the individuals with the jaw-dropping professional resumes. It is wiser to determine the strategy by the directors and hire someone who will adapt their offering accordingly. If coaches were once chefs, they have become more akin to delivery personnel: not responsible for the product, yet ultimately answerable should it be delivered poorly or fails to meet standards.

In the meantime, their job has become not about defining the vision and more about selling it: the receptionist on the front desk, the public face for a club they have minimal power to influence. Enzo Maresca leads a team of very young players into the Champions League and secures two medium-sized trophies, and essentially gets sacked for speaking out. A manager at Celtic finds his standing damaged while those individuals who appointed him continue to make errors indefinitely.

A Neoliberal Football: Responsibility Only for the Few

And perhaps on some microcosmic level this is simply neoliberalism in action: the rise of a privileged elite who are infallible, whose choices are always untouchable, whose errors can always be resolved by sacking without justification. Appoint the 3-4-3 coach only to fire him for playing excessively 3-4-3. Bring in the project manager and then bin them for taking too long. And most importantly be grateful; for the incremental season ticket price rises, for the latest summer signings, for the reality that the adults – regardless of their expertise – are in charge.