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Itbecame clear Ruben Amorim could survive losing against Grimsby. Survive losing a crucial continental showpiece against a particularly poor Spurs sides for many years. He withstood losing at home to West Ham and Wolves, a lowly league position, the tactical inflexibility, undermining some of the club’s most promising homegrown talent, a poor winning percentage, labeling the squad the poorest the club has ever seen. Yet, there existed one adversary with whom the Portuguese coach would not be allowed to engage. If you challenge the sporting director, you had better succeed.

Unfortunately, similar to numerous top-flight right-back in Blackburn’s title-winning 1994-95 season, the coach came at the executive and seems to have missed. Even the most distracted of readers can see the paradoxical situation: a manager who often railed at his players for losing individual battles succumbing when confronted by the intense pressure and formidable presence of one of England's top division's most intimidating sporting directors.

And frankly, this entire painful saga appears to portray the director in a different perspective. It may have been tempting, based on his nine months in a similar role at Southampton, to view him as merely a functionary within the club's structure: an individual who owed his position as much to his close relationship with ex-colleague a fellow executive rather than any demonstrable skill. How mistaken everyone was. In brilliantly outsmarting United’s feted head coach, just as he bested the hapless a previous executive earlier, he has demonstrated to be among the sport’s strategic masterminds: a tactical intellect of which the club's competitors are now rightly wary.

A Tactical Conflict Over System & Philosophy

To illustrate, it was the director , after having been part of the leadership that hired the 3-4-3 fundamentalist the coach in the first place, played a key role in trying to persuade Amorim to abandon his beloved 3-4-3. Naturally, these pleas met a certain resistance. But perhaps such directives carry more weight when issued by a man with the impeccable football pedigree he possesses, a veteran of international appearances and a role in a title-winning side from 31 years ago.

Perhaps in time he might agree to explain his thought processes to the rest of us. Maybe one day questions may arise why Amorim is departing with a full payout, without any penalty clause activated. But Jason Wilcox speaks rarely publicly, and with very good reason. The true intellectuals of this sport – individuals such as Jason Wilcox – simply operate at a level beyond our own prosaic understanding. Were he to speak, most likely we would perceive would be high-frequency signals and four-dimensional whirring. Wanting is not quite equivalent to being prepared to receive.

The Supreme Authority Behind Command

But of course, by focusing our attention on Jason Wilcox we are obscuring the real power behind the club's current leadership. Jason Wilcox is, in reality, merely executing the directives of his ultimate superior the billionaire owner, who in private has made very clear his desire for a four-man defense. According to reports, the owner has also proposed deploying the forward as a right wing-back. The owner is eager for the club to embrace analytics and metrics. According to ESPN, in an executive meeting early in his investment, he announced that the team's approach to football “shall be determined in this room”.

Ultimately, Ratcliffe is an expert in this technical football matters, drawing from his previous experience in industry and yachting. Most importantly he is immensely wealthy, and it is known, the rich are superior: more insightful, more wise, strategically brilliant, fundamentally better. Who else could one trust to oversee an enlightened programme of cost-cutting, the construction of a new stadium that looks a lot like an abstract design, the signing of Benjamin Sesko?

The New Soccer Order: Directors Over Managers

This represents a shift that is becoming prevalent at the elite levels of the game. For decades, teams mistakenly entrusted major sporting choices to subordinate staff like managers, talent spotters – players themselves. Maybe previously feasible for a young, innovative manager with a philosophy and energy to join a club and implement their plan through to completion. Yet how many businesses have such individuals established? How many large-scale layoffs have they overseen? Better by far to invest the real power where it rightly belongs: the executive class, the open-necked shirt brigade, the guys with impressive LinkedIn profiles. It is wiser to determine the tactics in the boardroom and appoint a coach who will adapt their methods accordingly. If managers were once chefs, they have become more akin to delivery personnel: not responsible for the product, but still finally accountable should it be delivered poorly or fails of the box.

In the meantime, their job is increasingly less about crafting the philosophy and more about marketing it: the receptionist on the front desk, the visible figurehead for a club they can do little to influence. A coach at Chelsea leads a team of very young players into the Champions League and secures domestic cups, and effectively gets sacked for talking. A manager at Celtic sees his reputation ruined whereas the people who hired him live to blunder indefinitely.

A Neoliberal Game: Responsibility for the Few

And perhaps in a small way this is simply neoliberalism in action: the elevation of a privileged elite who can never be wrong, whose decisions remain sacrosanct, whose mistakes can always be resolved by sacking without explanation. Appoint the system coach only to fire them for using excessively that system. Hire the process guy and later bin them for requiring excessive time. And most importantly be grateful; for your modest increases in ticket costs, for the latest player acquisitions, for the fact that the grownups – however well qualified – remain in control.