Crawley are unlikely to appoint a new director of football following the departure of Steve Coppell.

The club confirmed that Coppell had resigned on Monday in the wake of former manager Richie Barker’s dismissal.

Chief executive Michael Dunford has refused to elaborate on the reason for Coppell’s departure but admits the arrival of an experienced manager in the shape of John Gregory had made his role virtually redundant.

Dunford said: “When Steve came to us we needed a safe pair of hands, somebody with experience and knowledge to give the coach and the new manager a helping hand.

“With the appointment of an experienced manager like John who has 500 games as a manager at various levels in this country and abroad there is probably no requirement for that role at this particular time.

“Steve has the utmost respect for John but the jigsaw now is completely different to when he first joined us and when Richie was here. “There is no ill feeling between ourselves and Steve Coppell. We were very lucky to secure his services at a difficult time for the club but life moves on.”

Gregory intends to bring in an assistant manager to replace the departed Anthony Williams with former Portsmouth, Blackpool and Blackburn boss Michael Appleton one potential candidate.

But the former Villa boss insists he is happy to retain the rest of Barker’s backroom staff with Martin Hinshelwood, who was made caretaker manager for the game at Crewe on Saturday along with striker Gary Alexander, returning to his role as chief scout.

Gregory said: “We have got quite a long list of possible assistant managers but I don’t want to rush and do something unless it suits everybody.”

“I could go and get somebody this afternoon which I might regret in two weeks. It might be before the weekend, it might be in three weeks time but I’ll make we sure get the right one.

“I’m not really going to change anything with regards to who is already here. I know for a fact that they are all doing very good jobs so why fix something if it is not broken.”