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Transpired the manager was able to withstand a loss to Grimsby. He weathered an important European final against one of the worst Tottenham teams for many years. He could survive home defeats to domestic rivals, a lowly league position, his rigid approach, squandering the team's most promising academy products, a poor winning percentage, calling his team the worst in Manchester United history. Yet, there existed a single opponent against whom the Portuguese coach would not be allowed to dance. If you challenge the sporting director, you had better succeed.

Unfortunately, similar to numerous top-flight right-back during Blackburn Rovers' title-winning campaign, the coach came at the executive and appears to have missed. The most distracted of readers can see the paradoxical situation: a coach who frequently berated his squad for losing one-on-one duels crumbling when confronted by the intense pressure and formidable presence of a the Premier League’s most intimidating football executives.

In truth, this whole painful saga seems to paint the director in a whole new light. Perhaps it might have been tempting, based on his nine months in a similar role at Southampton, to regard Jason Wilcox as merely a drudge within the club's structure: an individual whose appointment was due largely to his close relationship with his former boss a fellow executive rather than any verifiable talent. How mistaken we all were. By masterfully outsmarting United’s feted head coach, as he outmanoeuvred the unfortunate Dan Ashworth earlier, Jason Wilcox has demonstrated to be among the sport’s strategic masterminds: a tactical intellect that United’s competitors are now rightly wary.

The Strategic Clash Over Formation and Ideology

For example, it was the director who being involved in the leadership that appointed the rigid 3-4-3 advocate Amorim in the first place, was instrumental in trying to persuade him to ditch his beloved formation. Unsurprisingly, these entreaties were resisted. But perhaps such directives carry more weight when issued from the mouth of a man the impeccable soccer background of Jason Wilcox, a veteran of international appearances and a role in a title-winning side decades past.

Perhaps in time Jason Wilcox might agree to outline his reasoning 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. But Jason Wilcox speaks rarely publicly, for excellent reasons. The true intellectuals in football – individuals such as him – simply operate at a level beyond our own prosaic understanding. Were he to speak, most likely all we would hear would be high-frequency signals and four-dimensional whirring. Desiring an explanation is not equivalent to being ready to comprehend it.

An Supreme Authority Behind the Throne

But of course, in training our focus on the sporting director we overlook the true genius behind the club's current leadership. The director is, in reality, merely executing the directives of his superior Sir Jim Ratcliffe, who in private has emphasized his desire for a four-man defense. It is reported, the owner has also proposed deploying the forward in a wing-back role. Ratcliffe is keen for the club to embrace analytics and analytics. According to ESPN, during a leadership summit soon after his minority ownership, he announced that the team's approach to football “will be decided by this group”.

After all, Sir Jim is an expert in these intricate football matters, drawing from his previous experience in industry and sailing. Above all he is immensely wealthy, and as we all know, the wealthy are the best of us: more perceptive, more wise, more tactically astute, simply superior. Who else could one trust to oversee a strategic plan of austerity, the construction of a modern arena that appears similar to an abstract design, the signing of Benjamin Sesko?

A New Soccer Hierarchy: Directors Over Managers

This is a trend that is becoming prevalent in top-tier of the game. Historically, clubs foolishly entrusted big footballing decisions to low-level employees such as coaches, talent spotters – even footballers. Maybe previously possible for a young, visionary coach with ideas and energy to join an organization and see their vision through to completion. Yet how many businesses have these guys established? What number of large-scale layoffs have they overseen? Better by far to place genuine authority where it belongs: the leadership tier, the open-necked shirt brigade, the individuals with impressive LinkedIn profiles. It is wiser to determine the strategy by the directors and hire someone who will adapt their offering to suit. If coaches were formerly chefs, they have become more akin to delivery personnel: not really creating the product, yet finally accountable should it be delivered poorly or leaks out to meet standards.

Nowadays, a coach's role is increasingly not about defining the vision and more about marketing it: the receptionist of the operation, the public face of an organisation they have minimal power to influence. Enzo Maresca leads a team of very young players into the Champions League and secures two medium-sized trophies, and effectively is dismissed for talking. A manager at Celtic sees his standing damaged whereas those individuals who hired him continue to make errors indefinitely.

The Modern Corporate Football: Responsibility for the Coaches

And possibly in a small way this is simply corporate governance in action: the rise of a privileged elite who can never be wrong, whose decisions are always sacrosanct, whose errors can always be sacked away without explanation. Hire the 3-4-3 coach only to fire them for playing too much 3-4-3. Bring in the project manager and later bin him for requiring excessive time. And most importantly show gratitude; for the incremental increases in ticket costs, for your new player acquisitions, for the reality that the grownups – regardless of their expertise – are in charge.