Even though Ange Postecoglou kept his promise that he would finally bring a trophy back to Tottenham Hotspur after 17 years, it wasn't enough. Spurs callously fired their beloved coach on Friday night after stringing him along for weeks, giving the fans who grew to appreciate him and the players who were in his corner 100 percent a massive letdown.
As Spurs scramble to find a replacement with even a fraction of the heart of the big Australian lest they derail their transfer window even further, supporters of the club are left to wade in the muck of another deplorable PR campaign headed by the odious Daniel Levy.
Perhaps no sporting figurehead is as universally despised by those inside and outside the club as Mr. Levy, who has earned the utmost distaste of two of the most legendary modern-day managerial figures in Antonio Conte and Jose Mourinho before this latest devilish decision to fire Postecoglou.
Firing the manager wouldn't have been so bad if Tottenham did it a few weeks ago and if Levy had some sort of a public statement with reasoning on why the move was made for sporting reasons. Instead, Tottenham waited weeks to make a heartless statement on Postecoglou, alienated just about everyone in the process, and probably won't even hire a better coach anyway.
Daniel Levy is selling what no Tottenham fan will buy
But what really rubs salt in the wound is how much Tottenham are going out of the way to feed utter bile to credible media members about why they fired Postecoglou or what transpired in the months before his poorly-handled sacking.
Take, for example, a report in The Athletic in which Spurs sources tell a reporter that they wondered during the season if Postecoglou's management and playing style were responsible for the rash of injuries in the squad. Similar information was presented to BBC's Sami Mokbel in his report, including friction between both the strength and conditioning team and the coaching staff and the medical team and the coaching staff over injuries.
It's the typical generalized hogwash that circulates around the press after a manager is sacked as a means of helping the club save face amidst an unpopular decision. Nobody is buying this. What Tottenham is selling to fans is about as believable as an eight-year-old child claiming to their teacher that they could not complete their assignment because their laptop spontaneously combusted. The only people gullible enough to believe this are Levy's lackeys in N17 who concocted this story themselves.
Even more laughably, it is claimed in these reports that Postecoglou was observed becoming more distant from the rest of the club. Apparently he wasn't having breakfast with the rest of the team and would have his usual order - ham and cheese - delivered to his room. The report from BBC Sport goes on to say that players would then go to other members of the staff instead of directly to Big Ange if they had issues.
This level of detail can only be provided by people within the club, and it's easy for them to distort the narrative. If all of this were indeed the case, you don't think people within Tottenham wouldn't have been eager to leak it all during the rough patches when Tottenham were dropping points left and right in the Premier League without the truly increased optimism of a Europa League title?
Postecoglou had his problems, but nearness to the players was clearly not one of them. The outpouring of support from so many in the locker room, from captain Son Heung-min to new signing Kevin Danso, speaks volumes to the fact that Postecoglou's attachment to the locker room had never wavered. The Europa League title itself is the most obvious evidence of that bond. No amount of Levy-driven PR drivel leaked to the papers is going to get Spurs fans to bite.