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Iturns out the manager could survive losing against Grimsby. Survive a decisive European final against a particularly poor Spurs sides in living memory. He withstood losing at home against West Ham and Wolves, finishing 15th, his rigid approach, laying waste to some of the club’s most promising homegrown talent, a poor winning percentage, labeling the squad the poorest the club has ever seen. But there was a single opponent with whom the Portuguese coach was not permitted to engage. If you challenge Jason Wilcox, you had better succeed.

Unfortunately, similar to numerous Premiership right-back in Blackburn’s title-winning 1994-95 season, Amorim came at Jason Wilcox and appears to have failed. Even the most distracted of readers will notice the irony here: a coach who frequently berated at his players for failing in one-on-one duels crumbling when confronted by the white heat and formidable presence of a England's top division's most intimidating sporting directors.

And frankly, this whole painful saga seems to paint Jason Wilcox in a different perspective. It may have been easy, given his nine months in a similar role with the Saints, to regard Jason Wilcox as little more than a drudge within the club's structure: an individual who owed his position as much to his close relationship with ex-colleague a fellow executive as any verifiable talent. How wrong we all were. In brilliantly outsmarting the club's celebrated manager, as he outmanoeuvred the unfortunate a previous executive earlier, he has proved himself to be among football's strategic masterminds: a strategic mind that the club's mid-table rivals are now rightly wary.

The Strategic Clash Regarding System and Ideology

For example, it was the director , after having been part of the hierarchy that appointed the rigid 3-4-3 advocate Amorim originally, played a key role in trying to persuade him to ditch his favored formation. Unsurprisingly, these pleas faced pushback. But perhaps these judgements hold greater authority when issued by a man with the impeccable football pedigree of Jason Wilcox, holder of three England caps and a contributor to a championship team from 31 years ago.

Maybe eventually he might agree to outline 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 in place. The director speaks rarely publicly, for excellent reasons. The true intellectuals of this sport – men like him – function at a level beyond our own prosaic understanding. Were he to speak, probably all we would hear is a series of high-frequency signals and complex calculations. Wanting is not the same as being ready to receive.

An Supreme Authority In the Throne

Naturally, by focusing our attention on the sporting director we overlook the true genius behind the club's current leadership. The director is, in reality, simply carrying out the commands of his superior the billionaire owner, who privately has emphasized his preference for a back four. It is reported, the owner has also proposed deploying the forward in a wing-back role. The owner is eager for the club to adopt analytics and metrics. Per reports, during a leadership summit early in his investment, he announced that United’s style of play “will be determined by this group”.

After all, Ratcliffe is a specialist in these intricate football matters, drawing from his background in industry and yachting. Most importantly he is immensely wealthy, and as we all know, the rich are superior: more perceptive, more wise, more tactically astute, fundamentally superior. Who 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 acquisition of Benjamin Sesko?

The New Football Order: Directors Above Coaches

This is a trend that is becoming prevalent at the elite levels of the game. For decades, teams mistakenly entrusted big footballing decisions to subordinate staff such as coaches, talent spotters – even footballers. Maybe previously feasible for an up-and-coming, visionary coach with a philosophy and drive to go into an organization and implement their plan through to completion. Yet how many businesses have such individuals established? What number of large-scale layoffs have they overseen? Better by far to invest genuine authority where it rightly belongs: the leadership tier, the casually dressed executives, the guys with the jaw-dropping LinkedIn profiles. It is wiser to determine the strategy by the directors and hire a coach who can tailor their offering to suit. If managers were once chefs, they have become more akin to delivery personnel: not responsible for the food, yet ultimately answerable should it be delivered cold or fails of the box.

Nowadays, a coach's role is increasingly less about defining the vision and more about selling it: the receptionist of the operation, the visible figurehead of an organisation they can do little to influence. A coach at Chelsea leads a team of literal children into Europe and wins two medium-sized trophies, and essentially gets sacked for speaking out. Wilfried Nancy finds his standing damaged while those individuals who hired him live to blunder indefinitely.

The Neoliberal Football: Accountability for the Coaches

And perhaps in a small way this represents neoliberalism in action: the elevation of a gilded elite who are infallible, whose choices remain sacrosanct, whose errors can invariably be sacked away without justification. Hire the system coach only to fire him for playing excessively that system. Bring in the project manager and later bin him for requiring too long. And most importantly be grateful; for the incremental increases in ticket costs, for your new player acquisitions, for the reality that the grownups – regardless of their expertise – remain in control.