Fortune favours the stable.
Despite short-termism running rife in modern day football for several decades now, there remains the prevailing view that stability and a long-term managerial appointment is the best route to success.
Usually, the reference points are managers of elite clubs: Sir Alex Ferguson, Arsene Wenger, Pep Guardiola and Jurgen Klopp to name just a few.
Even a little further down the food chain, to clubs who enjoyed their best periods of sustained, relative success in recent times, the same rings true: Everton and David Moyes, Tottenham and Mauricio Pochettino, Newcastle and Eddie Howe, Aston Villa and Unai Emery.
We can even round things off with the England job, where Sir Bobby Robson, Gareth Southgate and Sir Alf Ramsey are the three longest-serving Three Lions managers, as well as being the three most successful.
But what came first, the chicken or the egg?
Very few of those aforementioned rode out difficult spells early in their reigns, most having an immediate impact in improving their team's fortunes, with few hiccups thereafter. And when we consider each also enjoyed enormous success in one or more other roles, the answer to what is a classic causality paradox ought to be fairly obvious: really good football managers stay in really good football jobs for a long time because of the first bit, not the second.
Daniel Levy clearly believes Ange Postecoglou is not a really good football manager.
For the Australian to have left Tottenham merely two weeks after a Europa League final win that ended Spurs' near two-decade wait for silverware makes sense in that context. If Postecoglou wasn't good enough before leading his club to victory over a dreadful Manchester United team in one of the worst European finals in modern history, via one of the worst goals ever scored in one, then why would he be after it?
By showing this ruthless, albeit cruel, side the Tottenham chairman is likely to experience an enormous backlash, but it is this aspect of his character that will ensure Spurs never enter the kind of paralysing stasis Manchester United currently find themselves trapped in.
If only they had someone with such calculated judgment running their club, United would be far closer to climbing out of their deepening hole.
A sheer desperation to pin every hope to one messianic figure is no way to run a football club. So desperate for success, United are now on to a third successive permanent manager who more than likely is not the right appointment, but more than likely will get longer than he warrants in the job because of an incorrect view that only managerial stability delivers success.
What if that wasn't true?
Two of the clubs who finished in the top four in this season's Premier League were managed by men in their maiden campaigns, including Arne Slot's title-winning Liverpool team.
Hansi Flick led Barcelona to the La Liga title in his first season. Antonio Conte likewise at Napoli in Serie A. Vincent Kompany did the same at Bayern Munich.
Back to England and three of the top six clubs in the Championship saw their managers arrive either last summer or mid-season, with it the case for eight of the teams who finished in the top half.
And back to England's top flight, where Everton and Wolves were able to experience vastly improved campaigns when changing managers, but Manchester United, Leicester City, Southampton and West Ham were not, while Tottenham limped to a tragic 17th-placed finish.
Because it is very possible to get a managerial appointment wrong.
It is very possible Ruben Amorim should never have been appointed Manchester United manager.
It is very possible that despite beating his awful team in the Europa League final, Ange Postecoglou was not the best manager to lead Tottenham into next season.
And while Brian Clough immortalised the phrase "it's better to be a lucky manager than a good manager", it is very clear that will never be the case if you work for Daniel Levy.
Read more: Alex Keble on Ange Postecoglou
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