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Tbecame clear Ruben Amorim was able to withstand a loss to lower-league opposition. He weathered an important continental showpiece versus a particularly poor Tottenham teams in living memory. He withstood home defeats to domestic rivals, a lowly league position, the tactical inflexibility, laying waste to some of the club’s most promising homegrown talent, the 32% win rate, labeling the squad the poorest the club has ever seen. But there was a single opponent against whom Ruben Amorim was not permitted to tango. If you challenge the sporting director, and you best not miss.

Regrettably, like many a Premiership defender in Blackburn’s championship campaign, the coach came at the executive and appears to have failed. Even the most casual observer can see the irony here: a coach who frequently berated at his players for failing in individual battles crumbling when confronted by the intense pressure and animal charisma of one of England's top division's most intimidating football executives.

And frankly, this whole painful saga appears to portray Jason Wilcox in a whole new light. It may have been easy, given his brief stint in a similar role with the Saints, to view Jason Wilcox as merely a functionary within the club's structure: a man who owed his position largely to his friendship with his former boss Omar Berrada rather than any demonstrable skill. How mistaken we all were. By masterfully outsmarting United’s feted manager, just as he bested the unfortunate a previous executive earlier, Jason Wilcox has proved himself to be among football's strategic masterminds: a strategic mind of which the club's competitors are now justifiably concerned.

The Strategic Clash Regarding Formation and Ideology

For example, it was Jason Wilcox , after having been part of the leadership that appointed the rigid 3-4-3 advocate the coach originally, played a key role in attempting to convince Amorim to ditch his favored 3-4-3. Unsurprisingly, these pleas faced pushback. However, such directives hold greater authority when issued from the mouth of a man the unimpeachable football pedigree of Jason Wilcox, holder of three England caps and a role in a championship team from 31 years ago.

Maybe eventually Jason Wilcox might agree to outline his reasoning to the rest of us. Perhaps at some point he might be asked regarding why the coach is departing with a full payout, without any penalty clause in place. The director seldom speaks publicly, for excellent reasons. The true intellectuals in football – men like Jason Wilcox – function on a plane beyond our own prosaic understanding. Were he to speak, most likely all we would hear would be high-frequency signals and complex calculations. Wanting is not equivalent to being ready to comprehend it.

The Supreme Power In Command

Naturally, in training our focus on the sporting director we overlook the true genius behind the club's current leadership. Jason Wilcox is, after all, simply carrying out the directives of his superior the billionaire owner, who in private has made very clear 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 the club to adopt analytics and metrics. Per reports, during a leadership summit soon after his investment, he declared that the team's approach of play “will be decided in this room”.

Ultimately, Sir Jim is a specialist in this technical footballing stuff, leveraging his background in industry and yachting. Most importantly he remains immensely wealthy, and as we all know, the rich are the best of us: more perceptive, more wise, more tactically astute, fundamentally better. Who else could one trust to manage a strategic plan of cost-cutting, the construction of a modern arena that looks a lot like an abstract design, the signing of Benjamin Sesko?

The New Football Hierarchy: Executives Over Coaches

This represents a shift we are increasingly seeing at the elite levels of the game. Historically, clubs foolishly delegated major sporting choices to low-level employees like managers, talent spotters – players themselves. Perhaps it was once possible for a young, innovative manager with ideas and energy to join a club and implement their plan through to completion. Yet how many businesses have such individuals set up? How many mass redundancies have they overseen? Better by far to place the real power where it belongs: the leadership tier, the casually dressed executives, the individuals with the jaw-dropping LinkedIn profiles. Better by far to determine the tactics in the boardroom and hire a coach who will adapt their methods accordingly. If managers were once chefs, they have become more like delivery personnel: not really creating the product, but still ultimately answerable if it arrives cold or leaks out of the box.

In the meantime, their job has become less about crafting the philosophy and more about marketing it: the receptionist of the operation, the public face of an organisation they can do little to influence. Enzo Maresca leads a team of very young players into Europe and secures two medium-sized trophies, and essentially gets sacked for talking. A manager at Celtic sees his reputation ruined while the people who hired him live to blunder another day.

The Modern Corporate Game: Accountability for the Few

And possibly on some microcosmic level this represents corporate governance in action: the rise of a gilded overclass who are infallible, whose choices remain sacrosanct, whose mistakes can invariably be sacked away without explanation. Appoint the system coach and then dismiss them for using excessively 3-4-3. Hire the process guy and then bin him for requiring too long. And most importantly be grateful; for the incremental season ticket price rises, for the latest player acquisitions, for the reality that the grownups – regardless of their expertise – remain in control.