Joe Kinnear was forced out of his job at Newcastle after failing to get the best price for Yohan Cabaye.
The ex-Director of Football was asked to leave his post on Monday, rather than resigning of his own accord.
And one of the final reasons was the £19million fee he agreed for the French play-maker which owner Mike Ashley believed has sold the Magpies short.
Kinnear’s handling of the one big transfer deal of his eight months in charge of football business at St James’ Park left the club up to £5m down on what Ashley had hoped to extract for his star player.
Newcastle have no plans to replace Kinnear immediately, although they will have to get a chief-executive figure at the helm in time for the summer window.
Manager Alan Pardew is demanding a “rebuild” of his squad, which will require a tough negotiator and experienced operator to be in place.
There was frustration from Pardew and chief scout Graham Carr that the ex-Wimbledon manager failed to land a permanent deal last summer or in January, despite a list of ambitious targets which were out of Newcastle’s league.
Loic Remy and Luuk De Jong arrived on loan, but Kinnear always had a deal on the boil as he talked a good game.
Words came cheaper than the players he bigged-up his chances of signing during his fantasy football reign at St James’ Park, however.
One minute he was close to making a £20m breakthrough. The next, no one would be coming in, as United’s transfer policy veered from the sublime to the ridiculous.
He was asked to leave with what dignity he still retains, rather than be sacked.
The irony of the failure to get £25m for Cabaye being the deciding factor will not be lost on Newcastle fans, who were equally concerned about the failure to replace the Frenchman, with the list of targets identified by Carr and Pardew - notably Lyon midfielder Clement Grenier.
And wow, did Kinnear have some ambitious targets... which would sometimes emerge rather haphazardly as he befriended strangers in bars and left them thrilled with his tales of football gossip and legend.
Amazingly, they included Gareth Bale, before he moved from Spurs to Real Madrid for a world record fee of £86m.
On Tyneside, where every drip of information is fed-on and traded, Kinnear’s presence at the bar of Gateshead’s Hilton Hotel was indiscreet.
He believed he could open the doors not only to football managers around the world, but also to Bale, who he claimed to know and could meet back in North London, where they both lived.
While that deal was obviously pie in the sky, Kinnear also talked of others. He told acquaintances in the game he was going to sign Mohamed Salah, only for the Egyptian talent to join Chelsea a couple of hours later for £11m.
The director of football, the self-styled boss of all “matters football related at St James’s Park”, talked, and punters and rivals listened enthralled, amused and at times baffled.
For all Kinnear’s affable qualities which charmed Ashley as they struck up a friendship at their local pub in London, getting straight, consistent answers to work issues was always a problem.
Other tales circulated of Kinnear getting players’ names mixed up, not just on his infamous talkSPORT radio interview. He was also known to misplace his mobile phone on occasions.
Owner Ashley must take some of the blame for exposing Kinnear’s abilities to such public scrutiny, but he also shoulders a large portion of blame himself for his constant bluster with so little substance.
Kinnear’s departure is said to have been a little boost of Pardew, but it also means he is directly back in the firing line for criticism - his human shield has gone.
It also leave a power vacuum that those with a detailed knowledge of the club says needs filling with “a heavyweight” - but that won’t happen until the summer.
For now, experienced club secretary Lee Charnley and financial director John Irvine will run the Toon.
Former Newcastle keeper Shay Given, on loan at Middlesbrough from Aston Villa, has his finger on the pulse of Tyneside.
He said: “I think a lot of people are happy to see the back of (Kinnear). I think it was a strange appointment to start with. People will be scratching their heads in Newcastle and saying, ‘What did he actually bring to the club?’ And I certainly don’t have the answers.”
Kinnear never came up with a convincing answer either.