Former Bristol City manager Derek McInnes believes the Robins board went against their word when he was sacked and could have had a more proactive role to support him during his time at Ashton Gate.
The 50-year-old Scot spent 15 months at City before a 4-0 home defeat against Leicester in January 2013, leaving them bottom of the Championship, was enough for McInnes to receive the sack.
McInnes took charge in October 2011 becoming their fourth manager in 19 months after Gary Johnson, Steve Coppell and Keith Millen and helped guide the club to Championship survival following an eight-game unbeaten run towards the end of the season.
Speaking to the Open Goal podcast, the now Kilmarnock manager described the achievement as one of the best in his career. However, it was during the summer when he was tasked with off-loading the high wages and balancing the books that McInnes admitted the club were difficult to deal with, specifically in the recruitment department.
City had a number of high-earners on their books including goalkeeper David James and striker Nicky Maynard while former CEO Mark Ashton was working as a Recruitment Consultant at the time. Ashton's arrival in BS3 also coincided with the exit of Robins chief scout Russ Richardson who was reunited with McInnes at Aberdeen
City also had a congested squad with the influx of managers in a short period of time looking to put their own stamp on the team.
"We did so well in that second half of the Championship, I'd had Chris Wood on loan and he was brilliant for me just through contacts at West Brom. (Staying up) it was probably as good an achievement as I've ever had," he said.
"What we should have done in that summer, I should have been kicking and screaming at the board to get rid of more players. I gave the board a list of 14 players that needed to be moved on, they never really took it on. It was so hard to deal with at Bristol City.
"It was the best club they were going to be at, they were all well paid and they wouldn't have to go anywhere so I'd had four different manager's signings in the dressing room which was complicated.
"When the board came and said look we need to reduce Financial Fair Play and reduce the playing budget in half so I had to go from £15m to just over £7m and you need to try and get rid of the senior players and get young ones in.
"So Joe Bryan made his debut for me at 16, Bobby Reid who has just won promotion, Yannick Bolasie who was playing in the reserves and was nowhere near it, brought him in. They ended up selling him to Palace when I thought we should have worked harder at keeping him. We had Albert Adomah who was outstanding."
McInnes made a total of 20 signings during his time at the club including the likes of Greg Cunningham, Tom Heaton and Sam Baldock.
McInnes added: "I loved my time at Bristol City, I loved the club and I was desperate to be the guy that got it going but I probably put too much faith in the club to do what they needed me to do.
"They said 'look, this club has been fighting with relegation for too many years, if we go down with Derek McInnes, we come back with Derek McInnes… you help us sort out the financial mess and we'll come back up. We lost a home game to Leicester, they ended up going up. We lost 4-0 and I got the shout after it - 'we're going to part ways, we needed a change'
"It was a shock, it shouldn't have been a shock because we were still in the bottom two but after all the conversations we had... we live and learn."
McInnes spent just two months out of the game before he was approached by Aberdeen, returning to Scotland after two years following his previous spell with St Johnstone.
He spent just under eight years with The Dons, winning 202 of his 378 matches in charge including lifting the Scottish League Cup and ending a run of 19-years without club silverware.
He left the club by mutual consent in March 2021 and spent a further 10 months out of the game before taking charge of Kilmarnock in January where he helped guide them to promotion from the Scottish Championship.
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