Chief executive Simon Clegg says he believes the club's patience with managers is one reason that Town is an attractive club for managers despite the club’s position at the foot of the Championship.
Clegg said: "One of the interesting things is how other managers view this club and one of the attractive things is that we won’t judge a manager based on one or two games, as has been demonstrated with Paul Jewell and also with Roy Keane.
"We have given the manager every opportunity and have perhaps gone much further than many clubs would go in terms of supporting them financially and giving them time to turn things round.”
The Blues chief says former Jewell’s exit earlier today came very much after both sides came to the same conclusion: "I think we need to be very clear that it was mutual consent. Genuinely that is the case, Paul and ourselves both felt that this was the right time for him to leave the club.
"He’s been passionate about this club. I can’t speak highly enough of him in terms of the commitment he has made to this club.
"And we should also recognise that this isn’t just a professional issue for the club to deal with but there’s a personal issue here to do with Paul Jewell.
"He’s put his heart and soul into this club and he’s not succeeded in the way he hoped he would do, and that is incredibly painful for him.
"He’s got an incredibly strong family around him that will support him over the coming weeks. We both hope that this will be a catalyst for change. And it will be an opportunity for us to move on.
"We’ve got an immediate focus of getting ourselves out of the relegation zone as quickly as possible but we need to think about the long-term game for the club as well.”
He says he knows a lot of supporters wanted to see Jewell’s exit earlier: "Everyone’s got a different view in terms of when the tipping point should be, but ultimately that decision has to be the owner’s and my own.
"I also recognise that everyone’s view of the entire football club is dependent on what we’re doing on the field, and it’s not been good on the field for the last couple of seasons, and over this season in particular and we need to turn that around.”
Clegg says he and owner Marcus Evans are ruling no one out of the selection process, including managers already at clubs: "We need to look at things in the whole and if compensation is an issue then that will be addressed and I can’t see it being a major inhibiting factor for us.
"There are a number of Championship clubs with vacancies at this moment in time, but there are also quite a lot of managers who are looking for clubs as well.”
He says the appointment they are looking at will be someone for the long-term rather than a stop-gap boss until the end of the season: "I think that that is certainly the way that we are heading.
"That’s what we’re trying to achieve and I’m confident that’s the outcome that we’ll be able to achieve.
"It’s a long-term appointment that we’re looking for, someone who can get us out of the current hole but also take us forward in the future.”