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Iturns out Ruben Amorim endured defeat by lower-league opposition. He weathered losing a crucial European final against one of the worst Tottenham teams for many years. He withstood losing at home against domestic rivals, finishing 15th, an unwavering system, laying waste to the team's most promising homegrown talent, the 32% win rate, labeling his team the worst in Manchester United history. But there was a single opponent with whom Ruben Amorim would not be allowed to engage. You come at the sporting director, you had better succeed.

Regrettably, similar to numerous top-flight right-back in Blackburn’s title-winning campaign, the coach took on the executive and seems to have missed. The most distracted of readers will notice the paradoxical situation: a manager who frequently berated at his players for losing one-on-one duels succumbing in the face of the intense pressure and formidable presence of one of the Premier League’s most intimidating football executives.

In truth, this entire bruising episode seems to paint the director in a whole new light. It may have been tempting, given his brief stint in a similar role at Southampton, to view him as merely a drudge in the United exoskeleton: a man whose appointment was due as much to his friendship with his former boss Omar Berrada rather than any verifiable talent. How wrong we all were. By masterfully outmanoeuvring United’s feted head coach, just as he bested the unfortunate a previous executive before him, he has demonstrated as one of football's true generals: a tactical intellect that United’s mid-table rivals will now be justifiably concerned.

The Tactical Clash Over System and Ideology

To illustrate, this was Jason Wilcox , after having been part of the hierarchy that hired the rigid 3-4-3 advocate the coach in the first place, played a key role in attempting to convince Amorim to abandon his beloved 3-4-3. Unsurprisingly, these entreaties were resisted. However, such directives carry more weight 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 decades past.

Maybe eventually he might agree to explain his reasoning to the rest of us. Perhaps at some point questions may arise why Amorim is walking away with a full payout, without any penalty clause activated. The director speaks rarely in public, and with very good reason. The true intellectuals in football – men like Jason Wilcox – simply operate on a plane beyond our own prosaic understanding. If he ever did speak, probably we would perceive would be ultrasonic blips and complex calculations. Desiring an explanation is not quite equivalent to being ready to receive.

The Supreme Power Behind Command

But of course, in training our focus on Jason Wilcox we are obscuring the true genius behind the modern United throne. The director is, in reality, merely executing the directives of his line manager Sir Jim Ratcliffe, who privately has emphasized his desire for a four-man defense. According to reports, Ratcliffe has also proposed playing Bryan Mbeumo as a right wing-back. Ratcliffe is keen for United to adopt data science and analytics. Per reports, during a leadership summit early in his minority ownership, he announced that United’s style of play “will be decided by this group”.

After all, Ratcliffe is a specialist in this technical football matters, leveraging his background in petrochemicals and sailing. Most importantly he remains immensely wealthy, and as we all know, the wealthy are the best of us: more insightful, more wise, more tactically astute, simply superior. Who else would you trust to oversee a strategic plan of cost-cutting, the building of a modern arena that appears similar to someone’s leftover knitting, the signing of a new striker?

The Modern Soccer Hierarchy: Executives Above Coaches

This represents a shift we are increasingly seeing at the elite levels of the game. Historically, teams mistakenly entrusted major sporting choices to low-level employees like managers, scouts – even footballers. Perhaps it was once possible for an up-and-coming, innovative manager with ideas and drive to go into an organization and see their vision through to completion. Yet how many businesses have these guys set up? How many large-scale layoffs have they managed? Far preferable to invest genuine authority where it rightly belongs: the leadership tier, the open-necked shirt brigade, the guys with the jaw-dropping professional resumes. Better by far to determine the strategy by the directors and appoint a coach who can tailor their methods to suit. If coaches were formerly chefs, they have become more like delivery personnel: not really responsible for the food, but still finally accountable if it arrives cold or leaks out to meet standards.

In the meantime, their job is increasingly less about defining the vision and more about selling 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 literal children into Europe and secures two medium-sized trophies, and effectively gets sacked for talking. Wilfried Nancy finds his standing damaged while those individuals who hired him live to blunder another day.

The Modern Corporate Football: Accountability Only for the Coaches

And possibly on some microcosmic level this represents neoliberalism at work: the elevation of a gilded overclass who can never be wrong, whose choices remain untouchable, whose errors can invariably be resolved by sacking without justification. Hire the 3-4-3 coach and then dismiss them for playing excessively that system. Bring in the project manager and then bin them for requiring too long. And above all show gratitude; for the incremental season ticket price rises, for your new player acquisitions, for the fact that the grownups – however well qualified – are in charge.