A good friend of mine and Red Sox fan called me Friday night. He was angry.

He wasn’t angry about the September choke tour or Wednesday’s loss that put an exclamation point on it. He, like most of us, could see it coming at least two weeks away. If anything, he was grateful we had been put out of our misery before the most unlikeable team in his lifetime had taken its embarrassing act national in the playoffs.

What got my friend’s blood boiling was Friday’s two press conferences, the first featuring erstwhile Red Sox manager Terry Francona, the second Red Sox GM Theo Epstein and ownership (sans John Henry, who apparently pulled a Sideshow Bob and stepped on a rake on his yacht or something).

I’d missed the press conferences because of that great autumn oasis, high school football. Yet despite my friend’s warnings, I went home and watched both, in their entirety.

Aside from the braintrust’s insulting spin doctoring, I didn’t get angry, or any more angry. I came away wondering a) when the inevitable smear campaign against Francona starts to emanate from ownership via their various house organs in the Boston media and, b) who is going to hold the players accountable?

This space has often been critical of Francona for appearing more concerned about being consistent and even-keeled than winning every game. Well, the stories coming out of Boston the last couple of days make it clear why the manager might have been preoccupied with just keeping the clubhouse from turning into a juvenile detention center.

This is what Francona had to deal with this season, and perhaps longer than that — a bunch of juvenile, spoiled, entitled brats who formed cliques, held in-game clubhouse keggers, made excuses and put on embarrassing public displays such as going off on the manager when an official scorer’s decision didn’t aid their efforts for a new contract.

And that stuff was going on when things were going good. Imagine what was happening while the Red Sox were playing like a tee-ball team in September.

“When things go bad, your true colors show, and I was bothered by what was showing,” Francona said.

Francona is gone because he knew he couldn’t do anything about what was bothering him, and he’s had to turn in his uniform because of it (Does he have to turn in that smock he wore over it, too?) He isn’t blameless for what happened. But the problems that led to his dismissal remain. Over the coming weeks and months, we will see how Epstein and ownership address those problems.

How much will they hold the players accountable? How much can they hold the players accountable?

It will be easy to sift out some of the players if they choose. It just so happens that a lot of the players that Francona spent the longest protecting — Jason Varitek, David Ortiz, Tim Wakefield chief among them — showed how much they appreciated his efforts by becoming the most selfish players in a clubhouse overwhelmed by egos.

If Epstein and ownership decide it’s time for Wakefield to chase the Florida Marlins’ franchise victory record, for Ortiz to complain about the official scorer at Yankeee Stadium, and for Varitek (really earned that ‘C’, Tek) to hook up with the Atlanta Braves’ sideline reporter, they can just wave goodbye. These guys and some of the less high-profile dead weight have contracts that have either run out or have club options.

Unfortunately, their flexibility is limited beyond that, and it could give them some more spin control. Everyone agrees John Lackey has to go, but I don’t care if the Red Sox are willing to pay all of his contract and throw in Liverpool soccer tickets, why would anyone want a 33-year-old pitcher with a 6.41 ERA who shows up his teammates and his manager and has TMZ stalking him?

Someone might be willing to take a chance on Carl Crawford, but the Sox would probably have to eat even more money than they would with Lackey. Josh Beckett has three years and around $47 million left on his contract and spends more time working on his beer gut and country music videos than his inconsistent curve ball.

Broken down clubhouse lawyer Kevin Youkilis could be dealt, but Dan Duquette isn’t gainfully employed in Major League Baseball at the moment. At least he’s a guy who has shown some predisposition to accountability (Yo, Adrian. Any idea who God’s got in the Denver/Green Bay game?).

Angry fans such as my friend are already anxiously awaiting management’s first message to its players, other than that it’s OK to tune out the manager if we are paying you a lot of money and/or giving you awards for meaningless milestones.

If the players don’t hear it from Henry, Epstein and the rest of this bumbling braintrust, they will surely hear about it from from the fans who have slept off their two-title hangover. And they won’t stop with the players.

Let’s see how they spin their way out of that.