Brian Laws has expressed his disappointment at leaving Sheffield Wednesday and believes he had built "the nucleus of a very good side" at Hillsborough.
Owls chairman Lee Strafford confirmed Laws, 48, had departed the club "by mutual consent" on Sunday after defeat at Leicester saw them slide into the bottom three of the Coca-Cola Championship. Academy manager Sean McAuley has been placed in temporary charge of Wednesday, who have failed to win any of their last nine league games, their last success against Coventry on October 17.
In a statement released on the League Managers Association's official website, Laws said: "From my perspective it's obviously disappointing to be leaving my post as manager of Sheffield Wednesday Football Club."
He added: "I felt that we had the nucleus of a very good side; we experienced a good pre-season and enjoyed a relatively good start to the season.
"I would like to offer my sincere thanks to all of the players and to my assistant, Russ Wilcox, first-team coach John Dungworth and the rest of the backroom staff.
"I would also like to thank the fans for their support. Sheffield Wednesday is a brilliant club and I have enjoyed every minute of my time there."
Despite the Owls' poor run, Laws remained popular among fans and was given a rousing show of support by 3,000 travelling fans in his penultimate game in charge, at Doncaster last week. It was generally accepted on the Hillsborough terraces that until recently Laws had done as well as could be expected at Wednesday on one of the Championship's more modest wage bills.
Laws, who had been the Football League's 16th longest-serving manager, said: "It's disappointing to be leaving to be fair. I thoroughly enjoyed my time at Hillsborough, but you just have to move on.
"It's one of the disappointing things about our business, but I'll be back, I'm sure of that. I've experienced a lot of highs in football, as a player and as a manager and I've still got a lot to give."
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