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Transpired the manager endured defeat by lower-league opposition. He weathered a decisive continental showpiece against a particularly poor Spurs sides in living memory. He withstood home defeats against domestic rivals, finishing 15th, the tactical inflexibility, squandering the team's best homegrown talent, a poor winning percentage, calling his team the poorest in Manchester United history. Yet, there existed a single opponent with whom the Portuguese coach would not be allowed to tango. If you challenge Jason Wilcox, you had better succeed.

Unfortunately, like many a top-flight right-back in Blackburn’s title-winning 1994-95 season, the coach took on Jason Wilcox and appears to have missed. Even the most distracted of readers can see the irony here: a coach who often railed his squad for failing in individual battles succumbing in the face of the intense pressure and formidable presence of a the Premier League’s most intimidating football executives.

And frankly, this entire bruising episode seems to paint Jason Wilcox in a different perspective. Perhaps it might have been easy, given his brief stint in a similar role at Southampton, to regard Jason Wilcox as little more than a functionary within the club's structure: an individual whose appointment was due as much to his close relationship with his former boss Omar Berrada as any demonstrable skill. How mistaken everyone was. In brilliantly outmanoeuvring the club's celebrated head coach, as he outmanoeuvred the unfortunate a previous executive earlier, Jason Wilcox has demonstrated to be among the sport’s true generals: a strategic mind of which United’s mid-table rivals are now rightly wary.

The Strategic Clash Over Formation & Philosophy

For example, this was the director , after being involved in the leadership that hired the 3-4-3 fundamentalist the coach originally, was instrumental in trying to persuade him to abandon his favored formation. Naturally, these entreaties faced pushback. However, these judgements hold greater authority when issued from the mouth of a man the impeccable soccer background of Jason Wilcox, holder of three England caps and a contributor to a championship team decades past.

Maybe eventually Jason Wilcox might agree to outline his thought processes to the rest of us. Perhaps at some point questions may arise regarding why the coach is walking away with a full payout, with no penalty clause in place. But Jason Wilcox seldom speaks in public, and with very good reason. The real thinkers of this sport – men like Jason Wilcox – simply operate at a level exceeding our prosaic understanding. Were he to speak, probably all we would hear would be high-frequency signals and four-dimensional whirring. Wanting is not quite the same as being prepared to comprehend it.

An Supreme Authority In the Throne

Naturally, by focusing our attention on the sporting director we overlook the real power behind the club's current leadership. The director is, after all, merely executing the commands of his line manager Sir Jim Ratcliffe, who privately has emphasized his desire for a back four. It is reported, Ratcliffe has also suggested playing Bryan Mbeumo 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 minority ownership, he announced that United’s style of play “shall be decided by this group”.

After all, Ratcliffe is a specialist in this technical football matters, drawing from his previous experience in petrochemicals and yachting. Above all he remains incredibly rich, and it is known, the wealthy are superior: more perceptive, sagacious, more tactically astute, fundamentally better. Who else could one trust to manage a strategic plan of cost-cutting, the building of a new stadium that looks a lot like an abstract design, the acquisition of a new striker?

A Modern Soccer Order: Executives Over Coaches

This is a trend we are increasingly seeing at the elite levels football. For decades, clubs foolishly entrusted major sporting choices to low-level employees such as coaches, talent spotters – players themselves. Perhaps it was once feasible for an up-and-coming, visionary coach with ideas and drive to join 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? Better by far to invest genuine authority where it belongs: the executive class, the casually dressed executives, the individuals with the jaw-dropping LinkedIn profiles. Better by far to decide the strategy in the boardroom and appoint a coach who can tailor their methods accordingly. If coaches were once chefs, they have become more akin to delivery personnel: not really creating the food, but still finally accountable should it be delivered cold or leaks out to meet standards.

In the meantime, their job is increasingly less about crafting the philosophy and more about marketing it: the receptionist of the operation, the visible figurehead for a club they can do little to change. A coach at Chelsea leads a team of very young players into Europe and secures two medium-sized trophies, and effectively is dismissed for talking. A manager at Celtic sees his standing damaged while the people who appointed him continue to make errors another day.

A Modern Corporate Football: Responsibility Only for the Coaches

And possibly in a small way this is simply corporate governance in action: the elevation of a gilded elite who can never be wrong, whose decisions remain untouchable, whose mistakes can always be resolved by sacking without explanation. Hire the 3-4-3 coach only to fire them for playing excessively that system. Bring in the project manager and then bin him for taking too long. And most importantly be grateful; for your modest season ticket price rises, for your new summer signings, for the fact that the adults – regardless of their expertise – remain in control.