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Transpired he endured losing against Grimsby. He weathered an important continental showpiece versus one of the worst Tottenham teams for many years. He withstood home defeats against West Ham and Wolves, a lowly league position, his rigid approach, undermining some of the club’s most promising homegrown talent, a poor winning percentage, calling his team the poorest in Manchester United history. But there was one adversary against whom the Portuguese coach would not be allowed to engage. You come at the sporting director, and you best not miss.

Unfortunately, similar to numerous top-flight defender during Blackburn Rovers' championship campaign, Amorim took on Jason Wilcox and seems to have missed. Even the most casual observer will notice the paradoxical situation: a manager who often railed his squad for losing one-on-one duels crumbling in the face of the intense pressure and animal charisma of a the Premier League’s most intimidating football executives.

And frankly, this whole painful saga appears to portray the director in a different perspective. It may have been tempting, based on his brief stint in a similar role at Southampton, to regard Jason Wilcox as merely a functionary in the United exoskeleton: a man who owed his position largely to his friendship with his former boss Omar Berrada rather than any demonstrable skill. How mistaken everyone was. By masterfully outmanoeuvring the club's celebrated manager, just as he bested the unfortunate Dan Ashworth earlier, he has demonstrated as one of the sport’s true generals: a tactical intellect of which the club's mid-table rivals will now be justifiably concerned.

A Tactical Clash Regarding System and Philosophy

For example, this was the director who being involved in the leadership that hired the rigid 3-4-3 advocate the coach in the first place, played a key role in trying to persuade Amorim to ditch his favored formation. Naturally, these pleas faced pushback. But perhaps these judgements carry more weight when issued from the mouth of a man the impeccable football pedigree he possesses, a veteran of international appearances and a role in a championship team decades past.

Perhaps in time Jason Wilcox might agree to outline his thought processes to the rest of us. Maybe one day he might be asked why Amorim is walking away with a full payout, without any compensation reduction clause activated. But Jason Wilcox speaks rarely publicly, for excellent reasons. The true intellectuals of this sport – men like Jason Wilcox – simply operate at a level beyond our own prosaic understanding. Were he to speak, most likely we would perceive is a series of ultrasonic blips and complex calculations. Desiring an explanation is not quite equivalent to being ready to receive.

An Supreme Authority Behind the Throne

Naturally, by focusing our attention on Jason Wilcox we are obscuring the real power behind the club's current leadership. The director is, in reality, simply carrying out the commands of his ultimate superior the billionaire owner, who in private has made very clear his preference for a back four. According to reports, Ratcliffe has also proposed playing Bryan Mbeumo in a wing-back role. Ratcliffe is keen for United to adopt analytics and metrics. According to ESPN, in an executive meeting soon after his minority ownership, he announced that the team's approach of play “shall be determined by this group”.

Ultimately, Ratcliffe is a specialist in this technical football matters, drawing from his background in petrochemicals and yachting. Most importantly he is incredibly rich, and it is known, the rich are superior: more perceptive, more wise, strategically brilliant, fundamentally better. Who else would you trust to oversee an enlightened programme of cost-cutting, the building of a new stadium that looks a lot like an abstract design, the signing of a new striker?

A New Soccer Order: Executives Above Managers

This is a trend we are increasingly seeing in top-tier football. Historically, clubs foolishly entrusted big footballing decisions to low-level employees like managers, scouts – players themselves. Perhaps it was once feasible for an up-and-coming, innovative manager with a philosophy and energy to go into a club and implement their plan supported to fruition. Yet how many companies have such individuals set up? How many mass redundancies have they overseen? Far preferable to place the real power where it rightly belongs: the leadership tier, the open-necked shirt brigade, the guys with the jaw-dropping LinkedIn profiles. Better by far to determine the tactics by the directors and hire a coach who can tailor their offering to suit. If managers were once chefs, they have become more like delivery personnel: not creating the product, but still ultimately answerable should it be delivered poorly or fails to meet standards.

In the meantime, their job has become less about defining the vision and more about selling it: the front-facing representative on the front desk, the public face for a club they can do little to influence. Enzo Maresca leads a team of literal children into Europe and wins two medium-sized trophies, and effectively gets sacked for talking. Wilfried Nancy sees his standing damaged while those individuals who appointed him continue to make errors indefinitely.

The Modern Corporate Football: Responsibility for the Few

And possibly in a small way this represents corporate governance at work: the rise of a privileged elite who are infallible, whose choices are always untouchable, whose mistakes can always be resolved by sacking without justification. Hire the system coach only to dismiss them for playing too much 3-4-3. Hire the process guy and then discard them for requiring excessive time. And most importantly be grateful; for the incremental increases in ticket costs, for your new player acquisitions, for the fact that the adults – however well qualified – remain in control.