We're not there.  There are a lot of things that we as fans and fantasy managers feel qualified to have an opinion on based on what we see on the pitch each week.  It seems incredibly obvious to all of us when you see a manager make a choice - a particular line-up or formation - that doesn't go well or, more obvious still, when he gets better results after a mid-game change of player or formation.  The same can be said of a manager's choices in the transfer market.  If players who are acquired don't make the grade we feel fully qualified to judge the decision-maker as competent or not.  None of this is unreasonable.  We, as supporters, make the Premier League and our teams specifically into big money businesses and the price for that is scrutiny.

There is a point, however, where we should draw a line in our criticism.  That line comes when we - as supporters or the media - decide we know what's going on behind closed doors and that becomes the basis for our opinions.  I bring this up because it feels like we - and by "we" I mean people who follow and comment on the Premier League collectively, no one outlet or person - crossed the line with the sacking of AVB.  The results - which started out great - haven't been fantastic in recent weeks but objectively for a team that finished fifth last season and lost one of the top ten players in the world over the summer sitting in sixth close to halfway through the season doesn't seem like reason enough to sack the manager.  To further underscore the point that sixth isn't an unreasonable to be in at this point, Spurs' wage bill is very likely sixth highest in the league (they were sixth last season in wages with a large margin between them and both fifth and seventh) and wage bill and ultimate position in the table are often very highly correlated.

If objective measures don't give us any justification for the notion that AVB was worth sacking then it must be something a little less tangible.  It is entirely reasonable for Spurs management to decide that there is something about HOW AVB was going about his job, as opposed to the results, that made it necessary to fire him.  What isn't reasonable is for any of us outsiders to presume that we know the answers to these questions.  There have been suggestions in the media that the manager "lost the dressing room".  If that is true then by all means they were right to fire him.  The danger here is that there is no way for we outsiders to know how any Spurs player really feels about the manager.  Athletes are now trained to say very little of substance regardless of what we feel so regardless of what we do or don't hear from the Spurs locker room in the wake of the firing, we still have no idea what was going on in there.

The other thing that has been discussed a great deal in the wake of the AVB sacking is that he at least agreed to the series of expensive acquisitions over the summer that, at least in the short term, aren't working out as hoped.  Once again, we have no idea what the truth is here.  We outsiders don't know exactly how the acquisition strategy was formulated, vetted, and carried out.  We don't know if AVB towed the company line in the face of the new acquisitions because, well, that's what you do if you want to keep your job.  We don't know what the realistic alternatives were to the players that were brought in.  Finally, we don't know how these players will turn out over the long haul.  Looking across North London for recent history you'd find the following...

1. After his first three months, Marouane Chamakh looked like a strong acquisition...before he dropped off a cliff.
2. Per Mertesacker looked out of his depth and awkward in his first season leading to rumors that he'd be headed straight back to Germany.
3. Olivier Giroud was judged a lightweight in his first season and exceptional early this season and only now, 18 months later, are we probably settling on the truth which is that he's a very good complimentary piece but not a consistent match winner.
4. The Mathieu Flamini signing over the summer was widely laughed at as the desperate act of a manager in love with making moves on the cheap.
5. Finally, Aaron Ramsey - who has been the best midfielder in the Premier League so far this season - could have been shipped off to the Championship on loan for the season as recently as August and no one would have thought it a bad idea.