It is said West Ham United need a miracle next season, but their joint owners, David Sullivan and David Gold, have already performed one: they have made people feel sorry for Gianfranco Zola.
Indeed, they have gone one better. They have actually made people think Zola did a good job in trying circumstances and was unfortunate to be sacked. Hardly. The best thing that could be said about Zola's final season at Upton Park was that a good man handled himself with dignity. The rest of it, the worst points total in West Ham's Premier League history, misjudgements in the transfer market and a squad of players that appeared utterly unmotivated long before the owners started poking their oar in, was down to him.
The appointment was ill-conceived from the start anyway. Competent, experienced coaches do not need assistants earning £1 million annually. The reason Steve Clarke, Zola's right-hand man, was so extravagantly rewarded was that he was needed to coax his boss through unfamiliar territory. Sir Alex Ferguson does not pay an assistant anything like Clarke's salary, because Sir Alex Ferguson can look after himself.
So this was a flawed selection that produced a deeply flawed campaign with a set of results that would in most years have seen West Ham relegated. Apart from a winning personality, the only reason Zola continues to elicit sympathy is that his employers turned his drama into their crisis.
Their public contempt for him and damning criticism of his players made a bad situation worse, and this week Sullivan and Gold did not even have the good grace to sack the man and draw a line under this miserable affair.
The latest leak to spring from Upton Park - and this club has more holes beneath the waterline than half the wrecks on Goodwin Sands - is that Zola, having been fired on Tuesday, is now to be sued for breach of contract. The owners claim this is for his mild response on being told Sullivan had announced the entire squad, bar Scott Parker, was up for sale without telling him.
"If I was Mark Noble, Robert Green or Valon Behrami, I wouldn't be very pleased to hear that," said Zola. "It's not pleasant. You don't like it but this is the way it goes." Pretty tame stuff, in the circumstances, but enough for Sullivan and Gold to attempt to deny Zola his pay off.
Here we go again. Having already launched and lost a specious case against Fulham for fielding a weakened team against relegation rivals Hull City, Sullivan and Gold are now to embark on another doomed legal exercise motivated only by the desire to save a few quid. A countersuit from Zola that the constant undermining of his position amounted to constructive dismissal would be considerably more compelling than the hurt feelings of two men who have displayed little faith in their boss since walking through the door.
Had Sullivan and Gold behaved with greater composure the case for Zola's dismissal would have been absolutely clear. The only reason he has support now is that he is perceived to have been working for the bosses from hell. Avram Grant should think very carefully before accepting this job; and so should everybody else.