GUISELEY departed company with manager Danny Ellis on Monday and it has sparked a lot of debate within the club's community.

Chairman Gary Douglas has since spoken in order to address some of the concerns amongst fans, in a statement format.

His statement read: "Given the social media reaction around the sacking of Danny Ellis, I felt it necessary to provide not only clarification on this, but an update on the playing/managing/recruitment front as a whole.

"As happens when any significant change is made in staffing at a football club accusations and fingers are pointed and there seems to always be a need to blame someone. The Board’s decision to part company with Danny Ellis was obviously based on many factors and not least of all the results on the pitch. There seems to be various accusations regarding Russ O’Neill’s involvement with Danny leaving, for some context the Board were speaking to and trying to get Russ back involved in a recruitment/advisory role well before he accepted the role. Prior to Russ finally accepting the role he was adamant he wanted Danny’s full backing before he committed himself, which he got.

"We as a board felt it was necessary to make this decision without input from Russ as he had no part in the initial appointment of Danny and we deemed it unfair, Russ gave Danny his full backing right up to the last minutes of his tenure so to suggest he had any involvement in the decision to part ways with him couldn’t be further from the truth.

"As a club our goal since relegation last season has been to get back into the National League North, we understood it may not have been this season, but we needed as a minimum to establish a team of players and staff that could make it a reality for next season. This relied on Danny growing into his position as Manager and we as a board didn’t see this being a possibility based on current progress.

"When Danny was appointed it was always a gamble on his and the Club’s part, he’s a first time Manager and he was not fully aware of the intricacies and time that is required to excel in the role, Danny has admitted this himself. We hoped that with the help of his management team and Russ on the recruitment side this would allow Danny enough time to focus on the other duties of management. This could be blamed on a failing on our part to have put Danny in a position that, due to the short timescale, was a very difficult proposition and we accept that.

"Our interim management team have the full backing of the board to take charge of the team whilst we assess our options going forward. We hope that they can be successful both on and off the pitch during this period.

"Recruitment is another area I feel I as chairman and we as a club should provide an update on. There has been a large turnover of players this season, larger than we would have liked in all honesty, but we feel the more recent additions have improved the team. We continue to try strengthen but continually find ourselves getting into auctions for players that several other clubs are interested in. The playing budget was set at a higher level than the one which saw us relegated last season, yet we’re finding the competition for signings is even stronger now. We, led by our Sporting Director Russ O’Neill, will continue our efforts to not only attract players to the club but strengthen ties with Football League clubs which will benefit us in the long term."