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Iturns out he endured losing against lower-league opposition. Survive a decisive European final versus a particularly poor Spurs sides for many years. He could survive home defeats against domestic rivals, finishing 15th, an unwavering system, undermining some of the club’s most promising academy products, a poor winning percentage, calling the squad the poorest in Manchester United history. But there was one adversary with whom Ruben Amorim would not be allowed to tango. If you challenge the sporting director, and you best not miss.

Regrettably, like many a top-flight right-back during Blackburn Rovers' championship 1994-95 season, Amorim came at the executive and seems to have missed. Even the most casual observer will notice the paradoxical situation: a manager who often railed at his players for losing one-on-one duels succumbing in the face of the white heat and animal charisma of a the Premier League’s most intimidating football executives.

And frankly, this entire painful saga appears to portray Jason Wilcox in a whole new light. Perhaps it might have been easy, based on his nine months in a similar role with the Saints, to regard Jason Wilcox as merely a drudge within the club's structure: a man who owed his position as much to his close relationship with his former boss a fellow executive as any demonstrable skill. How wrong we all were. In brilliantly outsmarting the club's celebrated head coach, as he outmanoeuvred the hapless Dan Ashworth earlier, he has demonstrated to be among football's strategic masterminds: a strategic mind that the club's competitors will now be justifiably concerned.

The Strategic Clash Regarding Formation & Ideology

For example, it was the director who having been part of the hierarchy that hired the 3-4-3 fundamentalist the coach originally, played a key role in trying to persuade Amorim to ditch his favored 3-4-3. Unsurprisingly, these pleas met a certain resistance. However, these judgements carry more weight when delivered by a man with the unimpeachable soccer background he possesses, a veteran of international appearances and a role in a title-winning side decades past.

Maybe eventually Jason Wilcox might agree to explain his thought processes to the rest of us. Maybe one day questions may arise why Amorim is departing with full compensation, without any compensation reduction clause activated. But Jason Wilcox speaks rarely in public, for excellent reasons. The true intellectuals in football – individuals such as him – simply operate at a level exceeding our prosaic understanding. If he ever did speak, probably all we would hear is a series of ultrasonic blips and complex calculations. Wanting is not the same as being ready to comprehend it.

The Supreme Power Behind Command

But of course, by focusing our attention on Jason Wilcox we are obscuring the true genius behind the club's current leadership. The director is, after all, simply carrying out the directives of his ultimate superior the billionaire owner, who in private has emphasized his preference for a back four. According to reports, Ratcliffe has also suggested deploying the forward as a right wing-back. Ratcliffe is keen for the club to embrace analytics and analytics. Per reports, in an executive meeting soon after his minority ownership, he declared that the team's approach of play “shall be decided in this room”.

After all, Sir Jim is a specialist in this technical football matters, drawing from his background in industry and sailing. Most importantly he is immensely wealthy, and it is known, the rich are superior: more insightful, more wise, strategically brilliant, fundamentally better. Whom else would you trust to oversee a strategic plan of austerity, the building of a new stadium that appears similar to someone’s leftover knitting, the signing of Benjamin Sesko?

The New Football Hierarchy: Directors Over Managers

This represents a shift that is becoming prevalent at the elite levels football. For decades, teams mistakenly entrusted major sporting choices to low-level employees like managers, scouts – even footballers. Maybe previously possible for an up-and-coming, visionary coach with ideas and drive to go into an organization and implement their plan through to completion. But how many companies have such individuals set up? What number of large-scale layoffs have they overseen? Far preferable to place genuine authority where it belongs: the executive class, the casually dressed executives, the individuals with impressive LinkedIn profiles. Better by far to decide the strategy in the boardroom and appoint a coach who can tailor their offering to suit. If managers were once chefs, they have become more like delivery personnel: not really responsible for the food, yet ultimately answerable if it arrives cold or leaks out to meet standards.

In the meantime, a coach's role has become less about crafting the philosophy and more about selling it: the receptionist of the operation, the public face for a club they have minimal power to change. Enzo Maresca leads a team of literal children into the Champions League and wins domestic cups, and effectively gets sacked for speaking out. A manager at Celtic sees his standing damaged while the people who hired him continue to make errors indefinitely.

The Neoliberal Game: Responsibility for the Few

And possibly in a small way this represents neoliberalism at work: the rise of a privileged overclass who can never be wrong, whose decisions remain untouchable, whose errors can invariably be resolved by sacking without explanation. Hire the system coach only to dismiss them for using too much 3-4-3. Bring in the project manager and then bin them for taking too long. And above all show gratitude; for your modest increases in ticket costs, for the latest player acquisitions, for the reality that the adults – however well qualified – are in charge.