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Turns out he endured defeat by Grimsby. Survive a decisive European final against a particularly poor Spurs sides for many years. He withstood losing at home against West Ham and Wolves, a lowly league position, an unwavering system, squandering the team's most promising homegrown talent, a poor winning percentage, calling his team the worst the club has ever seen. But there was one adversary against whom the Portuguese coach was not permitted to engage. If you challenge Jason Wilcox, you had better succeed.

Unfortunately, similar to numerous Premiership right-back during Blackburn Rovers' championship 1994-95 season, the coach came at the executive and appears to have failed. Even the most casual observer will notice the paradoxical situation: a coach who frequently berated his squad for losing one-on-one duels crumbling when confronted by the white heat and formidable presence of one of the Premier League’s most feared 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 him as merely a drudge within the club's structure: a man who owed his position as much to his friendship with his former boss Omar Berrada as any verifiable talent. How mistaken we all were. In brilliantly outsmarting United’s feted head coach, just as he bested the unfortunate Dan Ashworth before him, Jason Wilcox has demonstrated to be among football's strategic masterminds: a tactical intellect that United’s competitors are now justifiably concerned.

A Tactical Conflict Regarding System & Philosophy

To illustrate, it was the director who being involved in the leadership that appointed the 3-4-3 fundamentalist the coach in the first place, was instrumental in attempting to convince him to ditch his favored formation. Naturally, these pleas met a certain resistance. However, such directives hold greater authority when issued by a man of a man the unimpeachable football pedigree of Jason Wilcox, a veteran of three England caps and a contributor to a championship team from 31 years ago.

Maybe eventually Jason Wilcox might agree to explain his thought processes to the rest of us. Maybe one day questions may arise regarding why the coach is walking away with full compensation, with no compensation reduction clause in place. The director seldom speaks in public, and with very good reason. The true intellectuals of this sport – men like Jason Wilcox – simply operate on a plane beyond our own mundane comprehension. If he ever did speak, most likely we would perceive would be high-frequency signals and four-dimensional whirring. Wanting is not the same as being prepared to receive.

The Ultimate Authority Behind Command

Naturally, in training our focus on the sporting director we are obscuring the real power behind the modern United throne. The director is, in reality, merely executing the commands of his line manager the billionaire owner, who in private has emphasized his preference for a back four. It is reported, the owner has also proposed deploying the forward as a right wing-back. The owner is eager for the club to embrace data science and analytics. According to ESPN, in an executive meeting soon after his minority ownership, he declared that United’s style to football “shall be determined by this group”.

After all, Sir Jim is an expert in this technical footballing stuff, drawing from his background in petrochemicals and sailing. Above all he remains immensely wealthy, and as we all know, the wealthy are the best of us: more perceptive, more wise, strategically brilliant, simply superior. Who else would you trust to manage a strategic plan of cost-cutting, the construction of a new stadium that appears a lot like someone’s leftover knitting, the signing of Benjamin Sesko?

The New Football Order: Directors Above Coaches

This is a trend that is becoming prevalent in top-tier football. For decades, clubs foolishly delegated major sporting choices to subordinate staff such as coaches, talent spotters – even footballers. Perhaps it was once feasible for an up-and-coming, innovative manager with a philosophy and drive to join a club and implement their plan supported to fruition. But how many businesses have such individuals set up? How many large-scale layoffs have they managed? Far preferable to place the real power where it rightly belongs: the executive class, the open-necked shirt brigade, the individuals with the jaw-dropping professional resumes. It is wiser to decide the tactics in the boardroom and hire a coach who can tailor their methods to suit. If coaches were formerly chefs, they are now more like Deliveroo drivers: not responsible for the product, but still finally accountable 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 selling it: the front-facing representative on the front desk, the visible figurehead for a club they can do little to change. Enzo Maresca leads a team of literal children 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 appointed him live to blunder another day.

A Neoliberal Game: Accountability Only for the Few

And perhaps in a small way this is simply corporate governance at work: the elevation of a gilded overclass who are infallible, whose decisions are always untouchable, whose errors can invariably be sacked away without justification. Appoint the system coach and then fire him for playing excessively that system. Hire the project manager and then discard him for requiring excessive time. And above all be grateful; for your modest season ticket price rises, for your new player acquisitions, for the fact that the adults – regardless of their expertise – are in charge.