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Itranspired Ruben Amorim could survive a loss to lower-league opposition. He weathered losing a crucial continental showpiece versus a particularly poor Spurs sides in living memory. He could survive losing at home against West Ham and Wolves, finishing 15th, an unwavering system, undermining some of the club’s best homegrown talent, a poor winning percentage, labeling the squad the poorest the club has ever seen. But there was one adversary with whom Ruben Amorim would not be allowed to engage. If you challenge the sporting director, and you best not miss.

Unfortunately, like many a top-flight defender in Blackburn’s title-winning 1994-95 season, Amorim took on Jason Wilcox and appears to have missed. The most casual observer can see the paradoxical situation: a coach who often railed at his players for losing one-on-one duels succumbing in the face of the white heat and formidable presence of one of England's top division's most feared sporting directors.

And frankly, this whole painful saga seems to paint the director in a different perspective. It may have been tempting, based on his nine months of experience at Southampton, to regard him as little more than a drudge within the club's structure: an individual who owed his position as much to his friendship with ex-colleague a fellow executive rather than any demonstrable skill. How wrong everyone was. In brilliantly outsmarting United’s feted manager, as he outmanoeuvred the unfortunate Dan Ashworth before him, Jason Wilcox has demonstrated as one of football's strategic masterminds: a tactical intellect of which the club's mid-table rivals will now be rightly wary.

A Strategic Clash Over System & Philosophy

For example, this was the director who 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 ditch his favored formation. Unsurprisingly, these entreaties met a certain resistance. But perhaps such directives hold greater authority when delivered from the mouth with the unimpeachable soccer background he possesses, holder of three England caps and a contributor to a championship team decades past.

Perhaps in time Jason Wilcox may be persuaded to outline his reasoning to the rest of us. Maybe one day questions may arise regarding why the coach is departing with full compensation, without any penalty clause activated. The director speaks rarely in public, and with very good reason. The true intellectuals of this sport – men like Jason Wilcox – function on a plane beyond our own mundane comprehension. If he ever did 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 comprehend it.

The Ultimate Authority In 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, simply carrying out the directives of his superior the billionaire owner, who privately has emphasized his preference for a back four. It is reported, the owner has also suggested deploying the forward as a right wing-back. The owner is eager for the club to embrace data science and metrics. According to ESPN, during a leadership summit early in his minority ownership, he declared that the team's approach to football “shall be determined in this room”.

Ultimately, Sir Jim is a specialist in these intricate footballing stuff, leveraging his background in industry and sailing. Above all he remains immensely wealthy, and as we all know, the wealthy are superior: more perceptive, sagacious, strategically brilliant, simply superior. Who else would you trust to oversee a strategic plan of austerity, the construction of a modern arena that looks similar to an abstract design, the acquisition of Benjamin Sesko?

A Modern Football Hierarchy: Executives Over Managers

This represents a shift we are increasingly seeing at the elite levels football. Historically, teams mistakenly entrusted major sporting choices to low-level employees like managers, talent spotters – players themselves. Maybe previously feasible for a young, innovative manager with a philosophy and drive to go into an organization and see their vision through to completion. Yet how many businesses have such individuals set up? How many mass redundancies have they managed? Far preferable to invest genuine authority where it belongs: the executive class, the casually dressed executives, the guys with the jaw-dropping professional resumes. It is wiser to determine the tactics by the directors and hire someone who can tailor their offering accordingly. If managers were once chefs, they are now more like delivery personnel: not really responsible for the product, yet ultimately answerable should it be delivered poorly or fails to meet standards.

Nowadays, their job has become less about defining the vision and more about marketing it: the receptionist of the operation, the visible figurehead of an organisation they have minimal power to change. Enzo Maresca takes a squad of very young players into the Champions League and wins domestic cups, and essentially is dismissed for speaking out. Wilfried Nancy sees his reputation ruined while those individuals who appointed him continue to make errors indefinitely.

A Neoliberal Football: Responsibility for the Coaches

And perhaps on some microcosmic level this is simply corporate governance in action: the rise of a privileged elite who can never be wrong, whose choices are always untouchable, whose mistakes can always be sacked away without justification. Hire the system coach only to dismiss him for playing excessively that system. Hire the project manager and then bin him for taking excessive time. And above all show gratitude; for your modest increases in ticket costs, for your new summer signings, for the reality that the adults – regardless of their expertise – remain in control.