Ange Postecoglou took on the 'plastic fans' trolls - and tore them to shreds, writes IAN LADYMAN

It hasn't been a particularly great week for football's traditional paying customers.

A VAR delay of almost six minutes at West Ham, price hikes at Manchester City, OAP concessions scrapped at Tottenham. At Chelsea, meanwhile, relations between the club and its fanbase continue to deteriorate.

It's a grim picture, for sure, and it's one painted on a landscape already pockmarked with ongoing and ingrained disregard for match-going football fans. Prices, kick-off times, public transport challenges. The direction of travel has been set for some time and shows no sign of turning round. It's quite shameful.

However, a lone voice when seeking context has belonged to Tottenham manager Ange Postecoglou and it's worth listening to.

Postecoglou was born in Greece and has spent most of his life living in Australia. As such, the 58-year-old knows how it feels to follow football from a relative backwater. He knows what it is to invest fully in something from a distance. He knows it can be done.

And now he has spoken up on the matter of overseas fans attending Premier League football matches.

Some have suggested they are taking the place of supporters more local to our football clubs. They aren't really but to some they are not welcome nevertheless. They call them 'plastics' and scoff when TV cameras at games show rows of them holding up mobile phones like tourists. These people are not proper supporters, we are told. They are a problem. They are taking our game away from its roots and from communities and from the people it is traditionally supposed to serve. But that's actually nonsense and Postecoglou has been confident enough to call it.

'I want Tottenham supporters in the stand, I don't just want anybody,' he said.

'But I am probably