John Gregory admits he cannot have any complaints following his departure as Crawley manager.

Gregory ultimately sowed the seeds for his own demise last August when he said he would have failed if Reds did not finish in the top eight.

That seemed fanciful at the time considering the former Aston Villa boss had been forced to scramble around to put a squad together over the summer after a mass exodus at the end of the previous season.

Winning their opening three games turned out to be a false dawn as Reds’ shortcomings were soon exposed regularly by their League One rivals.

The only surprise was that Gregory was not relieved of his duties before he stepped aside for health reasons following the Boxing Day defeat at Leyton Orient.

Managers are judged by results and that 4-1 loss which sucked Crawley into the bottom four for the first time was their tenth game without a win.

In fact, since arguably the highlight of Gregory’s 12 month tenure at the Checkatrade.com Stadium – the 2-1 win over Wolves last March – he had managed just eight victories in 35 league games.

The significant improvement – in performances if not results – under Gregory’s temporary replacement Dean Saunders only served to make his exit even more inevitable.

Saunders may have narrowly failed to keep Reds up but he at least gave supporters some hope and served up a more entertaining brand of football.

The final nail for Gregory probably came during the last day defeat to Coventry which sent Reds down to League Two.

Fans made their feelings clear they would not welcome him back and the club knew they could not risk an even bigger hit on season ticket sales.

Gregory said: “Unfortunately I did not get the results on the field this season that I managed to get during the second half of 2013-14 and Dean inherited the difficult task of trying to rescue our season with 24 games to go.

“I would like to thank the board for standing by me and supporting me during the very difficult time I endured whilst undergoing open heart surgery. I hope that the fans stand by their team and help to bring back the glory days again very soon.”

That seems unlikely with chief executive Michael Dunford already warning of further cuts following Crawley’s relegation to League Two.

Stopping Reds from dropping out of the Football League altogether would appear to be the next manager’s first objective – whoever that is.

Saunders remains the club’s first choice but has said he will only take the job if he has a budget which gives him a fighting chance of success.

Reds also showed Gregory’s entire backroom staff the door over the weekend.

Head coach Paul Groves – who replaced Guy Whittingham as Gregory’s No.2 last summer – departed along with chief scout Lil Fuccillo, head of science Niall Clark and physio Luigi Cerullo.