I've been offline for a few days, on a camping trip, and not been able to vent my feelings about the events. Although I know why the decision was made, I understand the arguments for it, and to a certain extent can agree with some of them, I really cannot process this just like that.
For one thing, those who were baying for blood: You got it, you got your pound of flesh. Now be quiet, or be gone!
Whoever the new manager will be, I will do as I always do: I will support him, cheer for him, and I will hope for eternal success to his name. Untill he is not our manager any more. However. Knowing some of our lot as we do, we know this does not ring true for all of us. Some of us apparently takes more satisfaction by letting their darker feelings dominate, letting their anger and fears dominate their thoughts and arguments.
As several has pointed out in this and other threads, letting Ange go now is a gamble Levy and the board _cannot_ lose and continue to have any credibility left. They absolutely HAVE to get this right, and rather immediately. If we can't land our nr 1 target this week or the next at the latest, I'd say they've roostered it up. If we end up with some Carlos Manageraball from nowhere as a 4th or 5th target, they are toast. Heck, even if we get Pep Guardiola, Jurgen Klopp or Ancelotti, or any other impossible guy and they fail to qualify for CL and/or win something next season, they are toast.
Now, I'm no less human than the next guy, I've had frustrations with managers, I've had disagreements with how they have set up teams, the style of play, etc. A good measure of how their tenure with us has been for me has usually been the feeling I got in my guts when the news of their sacking came. It's either a sucker-punch, or a relief.
I've never felt worse than when Hoddle, Jol and Pochettino were sacked. Hoddle, because he, well... he's Hoddle!! Jol, because he made Tottenham fun again after a _very_ very long time of brick. And Pochettino for really being the manager of the first Tottenham-team I felt -secure- with. I saw us line up against anybody in the league, and I had no fear! For a Spurs-fan of the nineties and the noughties, that was a rather unique feeling. And of course, because he lifted us right up there, where we could almost touch the sun. Unfortunatly our wax-wings melted and we plummeted to the ground again.
Likewise, the feeling I got when He-who-must-not-be-named-but-who's-name-starts-with-Mou was sacked was more of relief, puzzlement, and exitement. When Conte had his blow-out, the signs and portents had been many and long coming. So it felt more like a natural culmination of a far to long, boring movie. Just glad to get out.
As for Ange, I will cherish him, I will look at the pictures of him with that magnificient trophy, and I will smile, and I will remember the tears that streamed down my face, making my 9 year old daughter who couldn't sleep and watched the last minutes of that game in Bilbao with me ask if Daddy was all right, and I got to tell her that I was just so happy as I had not been in 9 years, the last time I cried like that was when she was born. And that it was bloody marvellous, and also, rather silly, because it was all because of a game of football. And I will remember the big smile, the big hug and that she said "if it makes you happy, it is not silly!" (Clever little girl, must have that from her mother...)
But even without that trophy, I will hold Ange high on my lists of Spurs-managers. Many has used that rather famous picture of our entire team on the half-way line against Chelsea in season 1, and some use it to ridicule Ange and us, other points to that game and says that's where the wheels fell off his wagon. I love it, for the same reason I loved Ossies insane all-out-attacks. It said something about how you want to go about stuff. It is about glory, it is about going out and beating the other lot, not to wait for him to die of boredom. It is about Audere est Facere.
And you can say what the fudge else you want about Ange Postecoglou, but you cannot deny that he has balls bigger than most, and that he dares. He dares.
Anyone who has a problem with this has a problem with the Tottenham Way. Fret not, there are clubs who suit you better, with logos with hammers, flowers or stupid mottos like "Victory Grows Through Harmony". But at Spurs, to dare is to do!
I hope Ange goes somewhere he can prove us wrong. Perhaps even to a club in the Premier Leage, or someone we might cross paths with in Europe. If all goes well, we will be flying high under a new manager, and can welcome him back and give him the ovations he deserve. Or, as I half fear, we end up losing to his team, lambasting our new sacrificial goat, and scolding whoever may be our manager at that point.
Ah well. Scribbles, scribbles. It's out now, and it is far to many key-presses to delete it all, so here goes...
