Town parts company with First Team Manager

Huddersfield Town can confirm it has today parted company with First Team Manager Simon Grayson with immediate effect.





Everyone at the Club wishes to reiterate and underline our thanks for what Simon achieved in their time here. Simon led Huddersfield Town to a return to the Championship after a decade-long absence in May 2012 via a Play-Off Final victory over Sheffield United at Wembley.





Huddersfield Town Chairman Dean Hoyle explained the decision:





“In making this decision, we have thought long and hard. It has been made with both the short term and long term needs of the Club in mind. We brought Simon in with the immediate aim to lead the Club to promotion and he did that at the first attempt. It is an achievement for which we are grateful.





“We knew the transition to Championship football would be difficult and our targets for this season have been realistic, with retention of our status the priority.





“However, having worked so hard to get back into the second tier we have to do everything we can to consolidate that position. After exceeding all our expectations in the early part of the season, our results and performances as a team and from individual players have tailed off alarmingly. Worsening displays have accompanied a run of just six points and no wins from the last 12 League games, including some very heavy defeats, culminating at Watford last Saturday.





“Whilst we would all have hoped for even some modest signs of improvement to begin to emerge as the weeks have passed that has not been the case. This has made the position untenable.





“We will now seek to recruit a new First Team Manager who can, in the short term, lead and reinvigorate the team and players for the remainder of this season and also drive us forward towards our long term aims.





“We will not rush to make a new appointment. In the interim Academy Manager Mark Lillis and Senior Professional Development Coach Steve Eyre will take control of the team, starting with Saturday’s FA Cup Fourth Round game at home to Leicester City.





“Managerial change is a last resort and I hope our supporters will now get fully behind the team, Mark and Steve, starting on Saturday.”