In a summer in which the mood around Tottenham Hotspur had finally begun to swing back to something resembling optimism and positivity the club managed to eat a chunk of that away as this week came to a close.
After a dreadful season for the club with chairman Daniel Levy appointing four different head coaches in their final four months, a miserable campaign that reached its nadir when the Spurs players had to reimburse the ticket costs of the supporters who had travelled the length of the country to watch an embarrassing collapse at Newcastle, there have been green shoots of recovery in and around the north London outfit in recent weeks.
Ange Postecoglou's arrival has been a positive step, not only inside the club where players and staff alike have already bought into his management, training sessions and clear communication, but also outside of it with even some of the more critical fans shelving their reservations for now after hearing him speak about the football he is going to bring them.
"I guarantee you won't be falling asleep watching our games," he declared this week.
While there remains a need to fix the defence, the transfers so far have been positive, mostly notably the £40million capture of England international James Maddison, the type of creative midfielder the supporters have yearned for since the departure of Christian Eriksen.
Tottenham fans were beginning to muster that most dangerous of things - hope.
READ MORE: How Tottenham players and staff behind the scenes have reacted to Ange Postecoglou's new methods
Then came an announcement late on Friday afternoon from the club about the matchday ticket prices decided for next season, which carried near its bottom links to those new prices. Supporters who clicked on it soon realised that prices for tickets that were already among the most expensive in the Premier League had risen, some by around 20%, and various games had been recategorised into more expensive bands, including Nottingham Forest, who barely escaped relegation last season.
Just three months before, in the wake of appointing the second of their four head coaches this year, Spurs had decided against an expected decision to increase season ticket prices and announced that they would be freezing them.
"Due to global economic events we, like all other sectors, are not immune to rising costs and disruption to supply chains, along with higher energy prices," read their statement. "We are, however, acutely aware that everyone is also currently impacted by the rising cost of living.
"With this in mind, and following consultation with the Tottenham Hotspur Supporters’ Trust, we can confirm that season ticket prices for the 2023/24 season will be frozen. We recognise and greatly appreciate the ongoing commitment our fans continue to make in showing support for the team."
Three months later, with circumstances still the same for fans, there was no explanation to go with the matchday ticket price rises and the Trust claimed that they had been "told rather than consulted" about the increase on the day they were released. There's a certain irony that it came in the week that the club announced the new members of their Fan Advisory Board.
For the supporters, who turn up without fail regardless of the dreadful football they have been served up at times in recent years, they cannot help but feel like they are being penalised for the club's own poor decisions during that time.
Levy has chosen the stream of managers who were unable to reproduce their achievements managed elsewhere, and given the green light to the recruitment advised by former managing director of football Fabio Paratici, who football.london revealed last month is still involved at Spurs on a consultancy basis.
It is those decisions and the performances on the pitch that have led to the absence of European football next season for the first time in 14 years and the lost income for the next 12 months that would have come from the Europa Conference League, let alone the Europa League or the promised land of the Champions League.
Yet it seems like the loyal and at times beleaguered fanbase are being asked to make up some of that shortfall, rather than the club instead looking to increase their income through the kind of smart sponsorship deals they have been known for, albeit without that long-awaited, lucrative sponsorship of the stadium that supporters are now paying ever more to enter.
Tottenham point to the fact that they froze their season ticket prices for the coming campaign whereas some clubs increased both those and their matchday ticket prices and that, as they said three months ago, the current climate means constantly rising costs for them.
"We are fully aware of the current rising cost of living – and as such are one of only three Premier League clubs to freeze season ticket prices for the coming season," a club spokesperson told football.london. "Our match ticket prices are comparable to other London clubs, with a wide range of price points available for fans to choose from."
Yet it's the look of it all at a time when the general fan is struggling financially - some already could only afford to go to the odd game here and there - and it comes when there has already been anger and frustration with Levy and the club's board, with chants for his exit at matches, home and away, last season.
Just when people were starting to regain the positivity and the hope that a new season and new era brings, so some of that has been eroded by this latest decision.
For an individual match-going adult fan, on top of the associated costs in getting to a game, Category A matches will now cost anywhere from £65 to an eye-watering £103. It is the first time they have tipped the £100 mark and it applies to many of the east and west blocks. Category B games range from £48 for adults to £95, while the cheapest prices for Category C games - there are only four of them against Bournemouth, Burnley, Luton and Sheffield United - range from £37 in the lower north west corner of the ground to £80 in the west stand.
Even harder hit than the individuals are the families. There is an irony of Tottenham pricing out an increasing number of families from watching games when they desperately want that next generation of fans to come through the gates to follow the club for decades to come.
For a family with two adults and just two children to watch a Spurs home match in the Premier League next season it will cost at its cheapest for a Category C match - remember there's only four of them - in the family stand (where only two blocks contain such tickets) £111.
That same family would pay between £141 and £162 in the south stand. However, large parts of north and south stands do not have concessions so that price rises to £236 as you would have to pay the adult rate for four tickets. In the east and west stands, where there are also no concessions available, a family of four would have to pay between £250 and £320 to watch a football match.
Again, that's only for four matches a season. The majority of Spurs' Premier League home games - ten of them - are Category B where those few family end tickets - if available - come in at £133, or instead range from £171 to £380 elsewhere around the ground.
For those families looking to watch one of the Category A matches, they will need to fork out between £193 - if they can grab the spots in those two blocks in the family stand - and anywhere up to an eye-watering £412 should they look to sit in the east or west stands.
Last season the split was five Category A games, nine Category B and five Category C. For this coming season it will be six Category A, nine Category B and just those four Category C.
Years ago the Tottenham Hotspur Supporters' Trust's vice chair and ticket lead Anthoulla Achilleos would go to Spurs matches as a youngster with her parents and brother when it was more affordable to do so, but now watches on as season ticket holder simply because it reduces some of the overall financial hit.
"Concessionary areas are limited, and it can be incredibly hard for families to find seats in this area, and therefore to be able to take their children and support the club they love, parents are forced to pay adult prices or not go at all," she told football.london. "For many paying between £200 and £400 for four tickets to a Category A game in the south stand is not only extortionate but it’s not feasible and they are priced out from the club they love.
"This is extremely dangerous when looking at our future fanbase. Covertly, the club is severely limiting access to concessionary tickets even within concessionary areas. By capping the number of junior, young adult and senior price points available in designated concessionary blocks the club is clearly trying to maximise gate revenue.
"Aside from being morally objectionable at a time when club income is unprecedentedly high, it’s commercially short-sighted, as it restricts opportunity for the next generation of fans to attend matches and disregards the older generation who have supported Spurs for many decades.
"If families and young people are priced out now where will our future supporters come from? They will turn to more affordable clubs to watch football, support them, and pass that fandom through their families as years go by. For a club that delivers such good work in the community, it seems committed to exploiting the one closest to it."
There is something else in these price hikes that rebounds on Tottenham. It is that they have a manager in Postecoglou, who by his own admission will take time to get his methods across as the players adjust to playing a brave style of football that can result in errors, especially in its early days.
The Australian, who will speak to the media on Monday afternoon for the first time as Spurs boss, has admitted publicly that he always needs the crowd behind him quickly as the early results under him are often rocky but should contain improved football on display before it all suddenly clicks to devastating effect.
Tottenham's new price increases will mean that even more fans will demand to be entertained and leave with the satisfaction a positive result brings. Football clubs can often point to concerts as having similar or higher ticket prices but those stars are then expected to deliver a certain level of performance to justify the entry fee.
The same will apply to Tottenham and it's heaping even more pressure on a new head coach who could be a game-changer for the club, but only if he has the time to transform the mess he has inherited.
It all feels like a missed opportunity for Levy and Spurs to continue a summer of positive change at a club that has been much-needed for a fanbase stuck in the doldrums. Those same supporters will certainly be even less forgiving should their club decide against moving for transfer targets because of increased prices.
More than a decade ago, the Bayern Munich president Uli Hoeness said when asked about setting ticket prices for the German giants' games: "We could charge more than £104. Let's say we charged £300. We'd get £2million more in income but what's £2million to us? In a transfer discussion you argue about that sum for five minutes, but the difference between £104 and £300 is huge for the fan.
"We do not think the fans are like cows, who you milk. Football has got to be for everybody. That's the biggest difference between us and England."
Twelve years on and Bayern's adult matchday tickets for the coming 2023/24 season at the Allianz Arena, regardless of the opposition, will range from just €15 (£12.77) to stand at either end, to the 'heights' of €80 (£68) when seated in the stands on either side of the pitch.
Postecoglou often tells his players that is their responsibility to alleviate, even for a short amount of time, the issues that fans struggle with in their daily lives.
"We're upholding the values of this football club, not just in terms of winning but the way we play our football. I want them to be proud of us. I hope they are proud on the journey home tonight. I am sure they will enjoy tonight, I don’t know how work will go tomorrow for most of them," he said after an Old Firm derby win against Rangers last season.
"As I said to the players, we had 60,000 [fans] in tonight and I'm sure a lot of them walked in with some problems in their life. For this 95 minutes we made them forget that and feel good and that's something special."
At Tottenham Hotspur at least they have a new head coach who seems to understand that.
