Like Jose and Conte, if you play rubbish football then people will only tolerate it if you win. If you play dire football and the results are crap then it’s only going to end in tears. He also didn’t help himself sticking to that high line even when he didn’t have the personnel to play it (see the 5-0 drubbing at home to Liverpool with Dawson playing CB using said high line). He was a likeable guy but the results and performances weren’t good enough ultimately.
I guess the other aspect is the player purchases.
We sold Bale (and Caulker) and we bought Chiriches, Capoue, Paulinho, Chadli, Eriksen, Lamela, Soldado.
Also, we could have played with a high back line of Lloris (37), Walker (26), Kaboul (11), Vertonghen (23), Rose (22). Best sweeper keeper in the world at the time. In brackets is the amount of league games those players managed to start. So we ended up with Naughton, Dawson, Chiriches etc deputising. In midfield Dembele managed to be fit for only 22 starts. He could have probably saved AVB his job on his own if we had the more defensive Mousa of 2 years later, especially with a fit Sandro alongside him, who managed just 10 starts.
Adebayor, Soldado, Defoe and a young Kane started that season as well. Erisken, Chadli, Gylfi and Lamela in that squad as well in the attacking areas.
It was a very good squad but no depth defensively, and too many newbies in one season. Way too many injuries.