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Itranspired the manager endured a loss to lower-league opposition. He weathered an important continental showpiece versus a particularly poor Spurs sides in living memory. He could survive home defeats to domestic rivals, a lowly league position, his rigid approach, squandering some of the club’s best academy products, the 32% win rate, labeling the squad the poorest the club has ever seen. But there was a single opponent with whom the Portuguese coach would not be allowed to engage. If you challenge the sporting director, and you best not miss.

Unfortunately, like many a top-flight defender during Blackburn Rovers' championship 1994-95 season, the coach came at the executive and appears to have failed. The most casual observer will notice the irony here: a manager who frequently berated at his players for failing in individual battles crumbling when confronted by the intense pressure and formidable presence of one of England's top division's most intimidating football executives.

In truth, this whole bruising episode seems to paint the director in a different perspective. Perhaps it might have been easy, given his nine months in a similar role at Southampton, to regard him as little more than a drudge within the club's structure: an individual who owed his position largely to his friendship with his former boss Omar Berrada rather than any verifiable talent. How mistaken everyone was. By masterfully outmanoeuvring United’s feted manager, just as he bested the hapless a previous executive before him, he has proved himself as one of football's strategic masterminds: a tactical intellect of which United’s mid-table rivals will now be rightly wary.

A Strategic Conflict Over System & Philosophy

For example, this was the director who having been part of the hierarchy that hired the rigid 3-4-3 advocate Amorim in the first place, played a key role in attempting to convince him to abandon his favored formation. Unsurprisingly, these pleas met a certain resistance. But perhaps these judgements hold greater authority when issued from the mouth with the unimpeachable football pedigree of Jason Wilcox, holder of three England caps and a contributor to a championship team from 31 years ago.

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, with no penalty clause in place. But Jason Wilcox seldom speaks publicly, for excellent reasons. The true intellectuals in football – men like him – simply operate at a level exceeding our prosaic understanding. If he ever did speak, probably we would perceive would be ultrasonic blips and four-dimensional whirring. Wanting is not the same as being prepared to comprehend it.

An Ultimate Authority Behind Command

Naturally, by focusing our attention on the sporting director we overlook the true genius behind the modern United throne. The director is, after all, simply carrying out the directives of his ultimate line manager the billionaire owner, who in private has made very clear his preference for a back four. According to reports, Ratcliffe has also proposed deploying the forward in a wing-back role. Ratcliffe is keen for United to adopt data science and analytics. According to ESPN, during a leadership summit soon after his minority ownership, he announced that the team's approach of play “shall be decided in this room”.

Ultimately, Sir Jim is an expert in this technical footballing stuff, leveraging his previous experience in industry and sailing. Most importantly he is incredibly rich, and as we all know, the wealthy are superior: more insightful, more wise, strategically brilliant, simply better. Who else could one trust to manage an enlightened programme of austerity, the building of a new stadium that appears a lot like an abstract design, the signing of Benjamin Sesko?

A New Soccer Order: 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, scouts – players themselves. Perhaps it was once feasible for a young, visionary coach with ideas and energy to join a club and implement their plan supported to fruition. Yet how many companies have these guys set up? How many mass redundancies have they managed? Better by far to invest the real power where it belongs: the leadership tier, the casually dressed executives, the individuals with impressive LinkedIn profiles. Better by far to determine the tactics in the boardroom and hire a coach who will adapt their offering to suit. If managers were formerly chefs, they have become more akin to delivery personnel: not really creating the product, but still finally accountable if it arrives poorly or fails of the box.

In the meantime, a coach's role has become less about defining the vision and more about selling it: the receptionist on the front desk, the visible figurehead for a club they have minimal power to change. Enzo Maresca leads a team of very young players into Europe and wins two medium-sized trophies, and essentially is dismissed for talking. Wilfried Nancy sees his standing damaged while those individuals who hired him live to blunder indefinitely.

The Neoliberal Football: Responsibility for the Coaches

And possibly in a small way this represents corporate governance in action: the elevation of a gilded elite who can never be wrong, whose decisions are always sacrosanct, whose errors can invariably be sacked away without explanation. Hire the system coach and then fire them for playing excessively 3-4-3. Hire the project manager and later bin them for requiring too long. And above all show gratitude; for the incremental season ticket price rises, for the latest summer signings, for the reality that the adults – however well qualified – are in charge.