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Transpired he was able to withstand losing against lower-league opposition. He weathered a decisive continental showpiece versus one of the worst Spurs sides in living memory. He withstood home defeats to domestic rivals, finishing 15th, his rigid approach, laying waste to the team's best homegrown talent, the 32% win rate, labeling his team the poorest in Manchester United history. But there was one adversary against whom the Portuguese coach would not be allowed to tango. If you challenge the sporting director, you had better succeed.

Unfortunately, similar to numerous Premiership right-back during Blackburn Rovers' championship campaign, Amorim came at the executive and seems to have missed. Even the most casual observer will notice the irony here: a coach who frequently berated his squad for failing in one-on-one duels succumbing when confronted by the intense pressure and formidable presence of one of the Premier League’s most feared football executives.

And frankly, this whole bruising episode appears to portray the director in a different perspective. Perhaps it might have been easy, given his nine months in a similar role at Southampton, to regard him as merely a drudge in the United exoskeleton: an individual who owed his position as much to his friendship with ex-colleague a fellow executive as any verifiable talent. How mistaken we all were. By masterfully outmanoeuvring the club's celebrated manager, as he outmanoeuvred the unfortunate a previous executive earlier, he has demonstrated to be among the sport’s strategic masterminds: a tactical intellect that the club's competitors are now rightly wary.

The Tactical Conflict Regarding Formation and Philosophy

To illustrate, this was the director who being involved in the leadership that appointed the 3-4-3 fundamentalist the coach originally, played a key role in attempting to convince him to abandon his favored formation. Unsurprisingly, these entreaties faced pushback. However, these judgements hold greater authority when delivered by a man with the impeccable football pedigree he possesses, a veteran of three England caps and a contributor to a championship team decades past.

Maybe eventually Jason Wilcox may be persuaded to explain his thought processes to the rest of us. Perhaps at some point questions may arise why Amorim is departing with full compensation, with no penalty clause activated. The director seldom speaks in public, and with very good reason. The real thinkers of this sport – individuals such as Jason Wilcox – simply operate at a level exceeding our mundane comprehension. Were he to speak, most likely all we would hear would be high-frequency signals and complex calculations. Wanting is not the same as being prepared to comprehend it.

The Ultimate Power Behind the Throne

Naturally, in training our focus on the sporting director we are obscuring the true genius behind the club's current leadership. The director is, after all, merely executing the commands of his ultimate superior Sir Jim Ratcliffe, who privately has made very clear his desire for a four-man defense. According to reports, the owner has also suggested deploying the forward in a wing-back role. Ratcliffe is keen for United to adopt data science and metrics. According to ESPN, in an executive meeting soon after his investment, he declared that United’s style to football “will be decided by this group”.

Ultimately, Ratcliffe is a specialist in this technical football matters, drawing from his previous experience in petrochemicals and sailing. Most importantly he remains immensely wealthy, and as we all know, the rich are the best of us: more perceptive, sagacious, more tactically astute, fundamentally better. Whom else would you trust to manage an enlightened programme of austerity, the construction of a modern arena that appears a lot like an abstract design, the signing of Benjamin Sesko?

A New Soccer Hierarchy: Executives Above Managers

This is a trend that is becoming prevalent in top-tier of the game. Historically, clubs foolishly delegated major sporting choices to subordinate staff like managers, talent spotters – even footballers. Maybe previously possible for a young, visionary coach with a philosophy and energy to join a club and see their vision through to completion. Yet how many businesses have such individuals set up? How many mass redundancies have they managed? Better by far to invest genuine authority where it belongs: the executive class, the open-necked shirt brigade, the guys with the jaw-dropping LinkedIn profiles. Better by far to determine the tactics in the boardroom and hire a coach who can tailor their offering to suit. If managers were formerly chefs, they have become more akin to delivery personnel: not creating the food, but still finally accountable if it arrives poorly or leaks out to meet standards.

In the meantime, a coach's role has become not about defining the vision and more about marketing it: the front-facing representative 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 Europe and wins domestic cups, and effectively gets sacked for talking. Wilfried Nancy sees his reputation ruined whereas the people who appointed him live to blunder indefinitely.

A Modern Corporate Football: Accountability for the Few

And possibly in a small way this is simply neoliberalism in action: the rise of a privileged elite who can never be wrong, whose decisions are always untouchable, whose errors can invariably be sacked away without justification. Hire the 3-4-3 coach only to fire him for using too much 3-4-3. Bring in the project manager and then discard them for requiring excessive time. And most importantly be grateful; for your modest season ticket price rises, for the latest summer signings, for the fact that the adults – however well qualified – are in charge.