PAUL Lambert conducted his pre-match press conference for tomorrow’s trip to Rotherham United as usual – after announcing he will leave his position as Blackburn Rovers boss at the end of the season.

Here are some more of the key questions he was asked about his decision to walk away from the club.

Why are you leaving?

“What I’ve got to say is that it’s a fantastic club and I’ve said that since day one. It’s a great club with great people in and around it. I’ve got no animosity against anybody here – the owners, the players, staff, fans especially, nothing. It’s a really good club.

“But I’ve said since day one I didn’t want to hover around where we are. The club had to kick on and it had to kick on in the summer. It might well do but it’s going to need a little bit of help.

“But I’ve got no grievance whatsoever with any party.”

Why announce the decision now? And why not wait until the summer to find out what you might have to work with?

“Why now? Because I think I owed it to the supporters and I owed it to the players who are here and the lads who are out of contract. We’ve got a lot of lads out of contract and we’ve got three lads on loan who are trying to get their futures sorted as well.

“To go into every game with trepidation that they don’t get injured, they don’t get hurt, and potentially put themselves out of the game, so I owed it to them as well. And their agents are probably trying to get in touch with people at the club and I didn’t want to put lads who have given me everything they’ve got through that situation of the uncertainty. I had to look at that.

“I could have done it a while back beforehand because I had a feeling this was going to happen. I think it’s for everybody’s best interests that it came out now. That’s why I activated it.”

Have you been unhappy with the way things are behind the scenes?

“It depends how you define the word unhappy. If you’re talking about frustration then, yes, because I want the club to do well; like the supporters, players and staff want it to do great.

“We had great intentions of seeing what we had this year, work out what players can handle us, and what players we could get to come in. I’ve always said the big window was going to be this summer and the club had to make the decision whether it wants to crack on or keep doing what it’s doing.

“If it wants to keep doing what’s it’s doing, then fine, but it’s just not fine for me.”

Was Alan Myers going on gardening leave the final straw?

“No it wasn’t. I’m big enough to make my own decisions. Alan going had no bearing on it whatsoever. Really nice guy, top guy, I’ve only known him for five months, but it had no bearing on my decision. My decision was based purely on football.

“It’s a decision I think is right for everybody concerned. People know the situation of me. It’s not rocket science, people will have probably realised things weren’t quite right.”

Was it a completely different job offered to you than what it turned out to be?

“There are things that will always remain private and I don’t want to get into name calling. One thing to stress is there’s no bad feeling, no animosity, no infighting, all those sort of things that make you leave a club. I’ve got nothing but good things to say about Blackburn Rovers.

“Financially nobody can point the finger at the owners of what they’ve done for the club. They’ve spent an awful lot of money but they’ve been hit by really bad situations of maybe the money not being spent the right way. But Blackburn Rovers isn’t the only club in the country when it comes to that. For me it’s important, with my ambitions and the way I want to do things, it’s time for everybody to know.”

Has a conversation with Suhail Pasha led you to making this decision?

“I knew it was going to happen, it was just a matter of when it was going to really happen, and just getting it confirmed, and everybody settled with what was going to happen. I sat down earlier in the week.

“There’s no bad feeling. Hopefully the supporters get behind us on Saturday and get behind us next Saturday and hopefully get through to the end of the season by winning the last two games.”

Have the results disappointed you on the pitch as much as what’s happened off the pitch?

“Yes but when you lose people like (Rudy) Gestede, (Tom) Cairney and (Josh) King, and Markus (Olsson) because he was out of contract, and Jordan (Rhodes) because of the money of it, and when you lose that type of player and you don’t get the ones of that ilk back in, it becomes a bit more difficult.

“It’s not rocket science. If you lose good players, the secret is to get ones in to give this group a hand.”

Do you worry for the club and the direction it should go in?

“I certainly hope not. I can’t speak for the way it will go forward or the players the new manager will want to re-sign. There’s a good group of lads and the new manager will make a decision on who he likes and who he doesn’t like.

“Do I fear for the club? No, I certainly hope not. It’s a great club, I don’t think people should be under any illusion how good it is, but it just needs help. I can’t probably put it as nicely and bluntly, it needs a bit of help.”