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Iturns out he could survive a loss to Grimsby. Survive an important continental showpiece versus one of the worst Spurs sides for many years. He could survive losing at home to West Ham and Wolves, finishing 15th, the tactical inflexibility, squandering the team's best academy products, the 32% win rate, labeling his team the worst the club has ever seen. Yet, there existed one adversary against whom the Portuguese coach was not permitted to tango. If you challenge the sporting director, you had better succeed.

Regrettably, similar to numerous Premiership defender during Blackburn Rovers' championship campaign, the coach came at Jason Wilcox and seems to have missed. The most casual observer will notice the irony here: a manager who frequently berated his squad for failing in one-on-one duels crumbling when confronted by the intense pressure and animal charisma of a England's top division's most intimidating football executives.

And frankly, this entire bruising episode seems to paint the director in a whole new light. It may have been tempting, based on his brief stint in a similar role with the Saints, to view him as merely a functionary within the club's structure: a man whose appointment was due largely to his friendship with ex-colleague a fellow executive as any demonstrable skill. How wrong we all were. By masterfully outsmarting the club's celebrated manager, just as he bested the unfortunate a previous executive earlier, he has proved himself as one of the sport’s true generals: a strategic mind that the club's competitors are now rightly wary.

The Strategic Conflict Over Formation & Philosophy

To illustrate, this was Jason Wilcox , after having been part of the hierarchy that appointed the rigid 3-4-3 advocate Amorim originally, was instrumental in trying to persuade him to abandon his favored formation. Unsurprisingly, these pleas met a certain resistance. But perhaps such directives hold greater authority when delivered by a man of a man the impeccable soccer background he possesses, holder of three England caps and a contributor to a title-winning side decades past.

Perhaps in time Jason Wilcox may be persuaded to outline his reasoning to the rest of us. Perhaps at some point he might be asked why Amorim is walking away with a full payout, without any penalty clause in place. The director speaks rarely publicly, for excellent reasons. The true intellectuals of this sport – men like him – simply operate on a plane beyond our own prosaic understanding. If he ever did speak, most likely we would perceive would be high-frequency signals and four-dimensional whirring. Desiring an explanation is not quite equivalent to being prepared to comprehend it.

The Ultimate Authority In the Throne

Naturally, in training our focus on Jason Wilcox we overlook the true genius behind the club's current leadership. The director is, after all, simply carrying out the directives of his ultimate line manager the billionaire owner, who in private has made very clear his preference for a four-man defense. According to reports, Ratcliffe has also suggested playing Bryan Mbeumo 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 investment, he announced that the team's approach of play “shall be determined in this room”.

Ultimately, Sir Jim is a specialist in this technical football matters, drawing from his background in industry and yachting. Above all he is immensely wealthy, and it is known, the wealthy are the best of us: more insightful, sagacious, strategically brilliant, fundamentally superior. Who else would you trust to oversee an enlightened programme of austerity, the building of a new stadium that looks a lot like an abstract design, the acquisition of a new striker?

A New Football Order: Directors Above Coaches

This is a trend we are increasingly seeing in top-tier of the game. Historically, clubs foolishly delegated major sporting choices to low-level employees such as coaches, talent spotters – players themselves. Perhaps it was once feasible for a young, innovative manager with ideas and energy to join a club and see their vision supported to fruition. Yet how many businesses have such individuals established? How many mass redundancies have they overseen? Better by far to place genuine authority where it rightly belongs: the leadership tier, the open-necked shirt brigade, the guys with impressive LinkedIn profiles. It is wiser to determine the tactics in the boardroom and appoint someone who can tailor their offering accordingly. If managers were formerly chefs, they have become more like Deliveroo drivers: not really creating the food, but still finally accountable if it arrives poorly 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 of the operation, the public face of an organisation they have minimal power to change. Enzo Maresca leads a team of literal children into the Champions League and wins two medium-sized trophies, and essentially gets sacked for talking. A manager at Celtic sees his reputation ruined whereas the people who appointed him live to blunder indefinitely.

A Neoliberal Game: Accountability for the Coaches

And possibly in a small way this represents neoliberalism in action: the rise of a privileged overclass who can never be wrong, whose decisions are always sacrosanct, whose errors can always be resolved by sacking without explanation. Hire the 3-4-3 coach only to fire them for playing too much that system. Bring in the process guy and then discard him for taking too long. And above all be grateful; for the incremental increases in ticket costs, for your new summer signings, for the fact that the adults – however well qualified – are in charge.