Town chief executive Simon Clegg says the tipping point which ended Paul Jewell’s management of the Blues was finally reached after last night’s 2-1 home defeat to Derby County. Jewell, whose time as Rams boss was coincidentally ended after a 1-0 defeat to the Blues in 2008, left the club by mutual consent this morning.
Speaking at a press conference this afternoon, Clegg said: "We’re very disappointed that we have parted company with Paul but we’re in a very results-driven business, a very public results-driven business, and the results speak for themselves.
"The table makes it very clear that the performance of the team over this season hasn’t been what we would have aspired and hoped it would be.
"Regrettably the manager needs to take a lot of the responsibility for that and Paul and ourselves have separated today.
"Some fans may wonder why [the decision hadn’t been made before], but at the end of the day the decision has to be made by the owner and myself. We reached a tipping point. We had conversations with Paul and that culminated in his departure today.”
Clegg says last night’s last-minute loss coming so soon after such a similar defeat at Hull City marked the end of the road: "That was a very important tipping point.
"We thought that after the defeat at Hull at the weekend - which was a bitter pill for us all to swallow, particularly in terms of the way we came away with nothing having been 1-0 up - that we should give Paul two home games as a final attempt to turn things around.
"Obviously, to lose in the way that we did last night in a similar fashion having been 1-0 up again, was bitterly disappointing.”
Asked why he feels the last two managers haven’t worked out, Clegg said: "It’s difficult to put your finger on it.
"We’ve appointed two successive managers who had a good pedigree and background in terms of being experienced team managers who have both been responsible for taking clubs from the Championship into the Premier League. But it’s just not worked here.
"Ultimately you get to a point where you reach a tipping point and you decide it’s in the interest of both parties to part ways, and that’s where we are today.
"I do accept that the owner and I are the only two people at this football club who don’t make the appointment with the benefit of hindsight and we have to shoulder that responsibility, and that’s what we do.”