For all his bluster, despite the perceived mutual affection and respect between David O'Leary, his "babies" and his chairman, the Irishman's departure from Leeds was a long time coming.

No manager can spend more than £96m in the transfer market, win nothing and expect to continue to enjoy limitless financial backing.

No manager can lose the respect of the dressing room and bring success to a football club.

And no manager can publicly question his board's behaviour, as O'Leary did on Tuesday, and be surprised when they take the ultimate sanction.

O'Leary always claimed to have a close bond with his talented crop of youngsters, who were given their head by the former Arsenal defender when he took over as Leeds boss in October 1998.

But why did they call him 'Spud Nose' behind his back? It wasn't a term of affection, that's for sure.

O'Leary's usurping of coach Eddie Gray by Brian Kidd proved an unpopular choice - not only among Leeds fans, but also players who felt the former Blackburn boss ran them into the ground in training.

Of course, a manager has to plan for the future. But in doing so O'Leary neglected the present.

Seth Johnson will blossom into a good player. But was he a shrewd buy at £9m?

And at a time when Leeds were crying out for an experienced head, was the midfielder the best available?

Peter Ridsdale, one of the few club chairmen with a positive public profile, never flinched in backing O'Leary with words and deeds.

A transfer deficit of over £67m indicates Ridsdale's implicit faith in the man who was given his first managerial job by the Leeds supremo when George Graham quit.

But once the Elland Road bean-counters had weighed up the damaging implications of another season without Champions League football and ordered a balancing of the books, O'Leary's intransigence cost him dearly.

That, plus his dressing room problems and the damaging impact of the Woodgate-Bowyer court case, made O'Leary's position untenable.

O'Leary leaves his eventual successor a vexed legacy.

He will have at his disposal one of the best young squads in the country - but he will have to sell big before he can buy.

Perhaps O'Leary was a victim of his own success.

After reaching the semi-finals of the UEFA Cup and Champions League in successive seasons, he was always setting himself up for a fall.

But even his biggest enemies - and believe me, he has many of those at Leeds and throughout the game - could not have wished his fall would be as sudden and spectacular.