'Matthew Etherington initiated his own exit' - Crawley Town co-owner Preston Johnson offers clarity about former manager's departure after just 34 days

The former West Ham United and Stoke City winger, and his assistant ex-Tottenham Hotspur and Wales star Simon Davies, exited Broadfield Stadium after just 34 days at the club.

The 41-year-old took charge of three Reds games, winning one and losing two League Two fixtures.

Many outlets had reported that Etherington had been sacked by the club, but Johnson was keen to refute these claims.

The American said: “Matthew Etherington initiated his own exit, we did not sack him, as has been assumed by a lot of the national media.

“He chose to leave his post after being here just over a month and he chose to do it a day before we played two games in four days which obviously came as shock and caused some real hardship for both our players and our club in the short term.”

Accusations had been levelled at Johnson by supporters that the ownership group WAGMI United were influencing Etherington’s team selection.

The group received fan backlash over the non-selection of striker Tom Nichols, and rumours that senior Crawley players were being frozen out at the club.

Johnson denied that WAGMI were ‘micromanaging’ Etherington, but the American revealed that the group ‘didn’t want to jeopardise’ Nichols after he agreed to sign for League Two rivals Gillingham.

Johnson said: “In terms of why Matt made the decision, I can’t speak for him, but what I do want to do is correct the misconception that seems to be out there that we were micromanaging him or not allowing him to do his job. It is simply not true. He was the manager, he picked the team, he set the strategy and he made the tactical decisions.

“The only restriction that he was ever given was the situation with Tom Nichols and that was a bit of a special situation because we considered that we might be moving him on in January and we didn’t want to jeopardise that by having Tom get hurt playing in poor weather or in bad playing conditions, which, for example against Hartlepool, we saw what happened with both Ashley [Nadesan] and Joel [Lynch] during that game.

“We did ask Matty not to play Tom for a few games for those reasons, which I hope should be understandable.

“Apart from that though Matty was fully empowered to manage the team and do his job right up to the moment he decided that he didn’t want to do that anymore, which is his right and decision.

“I want you guys to know that we are working to find the best candidate for this job and for this role as soon as possible and we should hopefully have some news on that in the days ahead.”