Jose Mourinho has never been particularly shy when it comes to bemoaning decisions, whether they be ones made by referees or those at boardroom level.
His Tottenham tenure was no different, but one dig at those running things in late 2020 was unique even by the self-proclaimed special one's standards. This is because it came not in a post-match interview, not even in a press conference but instead a video uploaded to Instagram.
Some have suggested Mourinho's football is that of a bygone era but the former Chelsea boss clearly keeps up with modern technology, as he used the social media platform to voice his frustration with the Premier League and their response to the coronavirus pandemic.
In 2020, the virus inflicted untold damage on livelihoods and entire industries - football being no different. With games forced to occur behind closed doors while fans watched on from home in fear of spreading the disease, a number of fixtures were scrapped the moment any club involved recorded a single case of Covid-19.
However, given the unprecedented nature of the virus - things hardly went off without a hitch. For example, Mourinho's sarcastic social media jab stemmed from confusion surrounding Spurs' clash with Fulham in late-December.
The Cottagers had suffered an outbreak of the virus within their camp and informed the Premier League well in advance of the 6pm kick-off time, yet those in charge of making the decisions dithered when it came to confirming whether the tie would go ahead before eventually postponing.
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Four hours before kick-off, Mourinho took to Instagram to upload a video of him sitting around with his staff awaiting an update from the league as to whether the game would actually go ahead.
The camera panned to a TV showing Sky Sports News, and he deliberately zoomed in on the time stating 2:02pm to emphasise how the club had been left in the dark so late in the day.
Not done there, Mourinho really stuck the knife in with the caption posted alongside the video that read: "Match at 6 pm... We still don't know if we play. Best league in the world."
At the time, there was huge debate over whether the Premier League should opt to take a two-week circuit break to try and let the virus fizzle out instead of battle through despite the havoc it was causing to the fixture schedule.
It was a similar story just a year later, with 2021's Premier League festive fixture list drastically impacted by the spread of the virus as three fixtures were scrapped by the league to try and halt the impact of the illness.
Mourinho's Spurs successor Antonio Conte was at the helm when the club had a huge outbreak of their own in early December of last year, with eight players and five members of staff returning positive tests.
"Eight players and five members of staff but the problem is that every day we're having people with Covid, people that yesterday weren't positive and today are and we're continuing to have contact with," the Italian explained.
"It's a serious problem. Today another player and another member of staff positive. Tomorrow, who? Me? Another member of staff? I want to speak about football. This is not a good thing for you, the fans and staff."
Thankfully, it seems all but certain this year's festive-fixture scheduling will go ahead without any such issues - though World Cup fatigue could be a problem.
