The Tottenham Hotspur manager's job has become a 'public meat grinder', with the club trapped in a cycle of ritualistic sackings that serve as a major plot beat in the Premier League season. The media's addiction to Spurs is understandable, as the club has become a content machine perfectly structured for a streaming drama: action that is endlessly repeatable but always essentially the same.
In the context of elite football's narrowing possibilities, sacking the manager is one of the few remaining story arcs. The fascination of the kingdom of Narnia stories—endless winter without Christmas—is analogous to Spurs without a managerial crisis: endless autumn, finishing fifth or sixth, with revenue sustained but no heat or jeopardy.
The players have become sentient, recognising they are active participants in the cycle, which changes the job fundamentally. The club bends managers out of shape: José Mourinho became an overcoat and a scowl, Ange Postecoglou went from amiable football-dad to depressed mountain bear, and Antonio Conte was gripped with feral rage.
To put all blame on the manager would be like blaming Chernobyl nuclear scientists for melting into their lab coats next to the exposed reactor core. The failing lies with executives responsible for vague recruitment, while the Spurs job remains a public meat grinder of endless disposable public couplings.
