"Myself and John had a great relationship for the majority of his time here. The situation has become strained in the last few weeks because of the unsettling influence that the Carlisle issue has had. John wanted to go and he was a bit upset that we wouldn't let him go for the money that Carlisle were offering.
"He felt we were holding him up in his career aspirations but we were doing that for the benefit of our club. The board meeting we had last week was probably the worst one John had attended. His body language suggested he didn't want to be there and when directly asked he admitted as much.
"Once you get to that situation then you have to resolve it and the manager has to move on. Perhaps it was time for a new manager to take us forward and it gives the board an opportunity to re-evalute the situation and look for something fresh and new. The difficulty is that if you have a manager on a long-term contract it makes removing that person very difficult because it is so costly.
"There are plenty of clubs in our situation that would have sacked their manager by now. We are second-from-bottom of the league and I think after the last two performances it is almost the best outcome for all parties. John has been our most successful manager but probably felt he had taken it as far as he could.
"John had been told on countless occasions that if he wanted something he had to come and ask for it. It is a bit disingenuous to suggest that we have held him back even though there isn't loads of money available. John knew that when he signed his contract last summer and nothing has changed.
"We offered (Craig) Armstrong and (JJ) Melligan a 50 per cent pay rise and even John agreed we had gone as far as was reasonable with those two players. The issue with (Kayode) Odejayi was not about money, it was more to do with the lure of Championship football."