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Transpired he was able to withstand a loss to lower-league opposition. He weathered an important continental showpiece versus a particularly poor Tottenham teams for many years. He could survive home defeats to domestic rivals, a lowly league position, the tactical inflexibility, squandering the team's most promising academy products, the 32% win rate, calling the squad the worst the club has ever seen. Yet, there existed a single opponent with whom the Portuguese coach would not be allowed to engage. You come at the sporting director, and you best not miss.

Unfortunately, like many a Premiership right-back during Blackburn Rovers' championship 1994-95 season, the coach took on Jason Wilcox and seems to have missed. Even the most casual observer will notice the irony here: a coach who often railed his squad for failing in one-on-one duels succumbing in the face of the intense pressure and animal charisma of a the Premier League’s most feared football executives.

And frankly, this entire bruising episode appears to portray the director in a whole new light. It may have been easy, based on his brief stint in a similar role with the Saints, to regard him as little more than a functionary in the United exoskeleton: a man whose appointment was due largely to his friendship with his former boss Omar Berrada as any demonstrable skill. How wrong everyone was. In brilliantly outsmarting United’s feted head coach, as he outmanoeuvred the unfortunate Dan Ashworth before him, Jason Wilcox has demonstrated to be among the sport’s true generals: a strategic mind that United’s competitors are now justifiably concerned.

A Tactical Clash Over System & Philosophy

To illustrate, this was the director who being involved in the hierarchy that appointed 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. Naturally, these pleas met a certain resistance. However, these judgements hold greater authority when issued by a man of a man the unimpeachable football pedigree he possesses, a veteran of three England caps and a role in a championship team from 31 years ago.

Maybe eventually he may be persuaded to explain his thought processes to the rest of us. Perhaps at some point questions may arise regarding why the coach is departing with a full payout, without any penalty clause activated. The director seldom speaks publicly, for excellent reasons. The real thinkers of this sport – men like him – function at a level beyond our own prosaic understanding. Were he to speak, most likely all we would hear is a series of high-frequency signals and four-dimensional whirring. Wanting is not the same as being prepared to receive.

The Ultimate Authority Behind Command

But of course, in training our focus on Jason Wilcox we overlook the true genius behind the club's current leadership. The director is, after all, merely executing the directives of his line manager Sir Jim Ratcliffe, who privately has emphasized his preference for a back four. According to reports, Ratcliffe has also suggested deploying the forward in a wing-back role. Ratcliffe is keen for United to embrace data science and metrics. According to ESPN, during a leadership summit early in his investment, he announced that United’s style to football “will be decided by this group”.

Ultimately, Sir Jim is an expert in these intricate footballing stuff, leveraging his previous experience in industry and yachting. Above all he remains incredibly rich, and as we all know, the wealthy are superior: more perceptive, more wise, strategically brilliant, simply superior. Who else would you trust to manage an enlightened programme of austerity, the construction of a new stadium that looks similar to someone’s leftover knitting, the acquisition of Benjamin Sesko?

A Modern Football Order: Directors Over Coaches

This is a trend that is becoming prevalent at the elite levels football. For decades, teams mistakenly entrusted major sporting choices to low-level employees like managers, talent spotters – even footballers. Perhaps it was once possible for an up-and-coming, innovative manager with a philosophy and energy to join a club and implement their plan supported to fruition. But how many businesses have these guys established? How many mass redundancies have they managed? Better by far to invest genuine authority where it belongs: the leadership tier, the open-necked shirt brigade, the guys with impressive LinkedIn profiles. It is wiser to decide the strategy by the directors and hire a coach who can tailor their methods accordingly. If managers were once chefs, they have become more like Deliveroo drivers: not really responsible for the product, but still finally accountable if it arrives poorly or leaks out of the box.

Nowadays, their job has become less about crafting the philosophy and more about selling it: the receptionist on the front desk, the public face of an organisation they can do little to influence. Enzo Maresca takes a squad of very young players into the Champions League and secures two medium-sized trophies, and effectively gets sacked for speaking out. Wilfried Nancy sees his standing damaged while those individuals who hired him live to blunder indefinitely.

A Modern Corporate Game: Accountability for the Coaches

And perhaps in a small way this represents corporate governance in action: the rise of a privileged elite who can never be wrong, whose decisions remain untouchable, whose errors can invariably be sacked away without justification. Appoint the 3-4-3 coach only to fire them for playing excessively 3-4-3. Hire the process guy and later discard them for taking too long. And above all be grateful; for your modest increases in ticket costs, for your new player acquisitions, for the fact that the grownups – however well qualified – are in charge.