There will undoubtedly be a tonne of Tottenham fans shaking their heads in disbelief on Christmas Day, mumbling “how did it come to this?” And it won't be because their wife has just gifted them a leather jock-strap.

It will be because their team is seventh in the Premier League, and the club's chief decision-maker has seemingly tossed their Champions League qualifying strategy into the bin and quickly scribbled down a new one. 

It will also be because they have chased out their most enterprising, promising and successful coach in years and put a man with no managerial experience nor accomplishment in his place. 

And when they search the living room for someone to blame they might catch the steely eye of the Tottenham chairman, Daniel Levy, on the front of their new Spurs calendar and frown. 

It was Levy's decision to sack Andre Villas-Boas last week and to appoint Tim Sherwood as his successor, and there is no denying that his decision-making has derailed Tottenham's season. At what point does he become accountable?

Many chairmen and owners find themselves relatively protected from criticism if they have been able to appease the supporters with monumental investment. Levy and owner Joe Lewis, for the most part, are still riding a wave of gushing praise for having dragged Tottenham out of mid-table obscurity and into the fight for the Champions League places.

But the list of managers Levy has hired and fired has grown lengthy with the passing of years - almost a decade since Jacques Santini, Frank Arnesen and Martin Jol were first drafted in to try to realise this ambition. Only one manager, Harry Redknapp, has achieved the main aim.

Surely then, Levy is either a bad manager himself, or a bad recruiter. Either way, a string of his decisions should be called into question.

Firstly, the employment of Damien Comolli as sporting director in 2005. The Frenchman was hired off the back of limited experience in the same role at Saint-Etienne, and was responsible for introducing a number of expensive flops to the Tottenham squad, including Darren Bent and David Bentley.

Comolli eventually went on to cause similar problems at Liverpool. After leaving Saint-Etienne for a second time to move to Anfield, the French club's co-chairman Bernard Caiazzo said: “Damien spent €22 million on seven players and only one is a first team regular. We gave him the keys to our club and are now in financial difficulties.”

Comolli is also believed to have played a big part in the sacking of Martin Jol, who many believed was on the cusp of delivering Spurs Champions League football for the first time, and the subsequent hiring of Juande Ramos in 2007. Despite winning the League Cup in 2008, which was Tottenham's first and only trophy so far of Levy's reign, Ramos oversaw some of their worst ever league form and proved undoubtedly to be another bad appointment.

Then there was the sacking of Harry Redknapp in 2012. His flirtation with the England job and appearance in court on tax-evasion charges may have given cause for his removal on a personal level but, under him, Tottenham enjoyed some of their best form since the 1960s. And he was hard-done-by when Chelsea won the Champions League and kicked Spurs out of the following season's competition.

The decision appeared to be vindicated when Levy brought Spurs fans the exciting prospect of a young, tactically sophisticated coach in Villas-Boas and returned to a continental management structure - the method he has always preferred. AVB delivered Spurs' best ever Premier League points total at the end of last season and produced the best form of Gareth Bale's Tottenham career, yet not even halfway into the current Premier League season he has been abandoned.

Why? Again it appears to be because of a personal issue, and whether it will turn out to be Levy's worst decision so far will obviously depend on the performance of Sherwood for the remainder of the season. But for Levy to turn heel and return to the old-English style of management - maximum motivation, minimal fuss - is baffling.

And all the while, throughout an unstable managerial situation that has gone on for too long, Levy has controversially sold some of Tottenham's best ever players. It is a simple fact that top teams who wish to remain top teams do not sell their best talent in their prime. Levy let go Dimitar Berbatov, Luka Modric, Rafael van der Vaart and Bale, breaking publically stated promises not to do so.

If you want the key reason for the club’s failure to break into the Champions League more than once since this dream began, it is this: Daniel Levy has sacrificed all the Spurs greats in this period; managers and players.

There are also questions to be asked of Levy over the dawdling Northumblerland Park project - Spurs' proposed new stadium - which he was also ready to abandon at the drop of a hat when the possibility of moving to the Olympic Stadium arose. 

The blame for Tottenham's failings has been passed around from managers to players to sporting directors in the past, and even been pinned on external forces beyond the club's control. But it may well have laid at the feet of the chairman all along.