Chester FC chairman Simon Olorenshaw insists the board's decision to dismiss manager Steve Burr was not a 'knee-jerk reaction'.
Burr was told on Thursday evening his contract was being terminated with immediate effect following a run of one win in 10 games.
But the fan-owned club's form has been a concern to supporters for a far longer period of time with the Blues picking up four league wins since November.
While a growing number of fans had been calling for Burr's head in recent weeks, the timing of his departure and the decision to put his assistant Jon McCarthy and club captain Ian Sharps in charge for the final four games has been greeted with a mixed reaction.
Burr's final game in charge was a 2-0 defeat at relegation rivals Torquay United on Tuesday but Olorenshaw has assured fans the board had not pressed the panic button in sacking him now rather than waiting until the end of the season to decide his future.
"I think it's been a combination of things and certainly wasn't a knee-jerk reaction," Olorenshaw told the Friday Night Football Show with Shane Pinnington on Dee 106.3.
Read: Steve Burr sacked as Chester manager
"If you look at the last five months we've had four wins in that period of time and I think as a board we all thought with the fixtures we had coming up over the Easter period that we could get through and we'd have the points that would secure us so there wouldn't be this sort of issue.
"But we've been talking to Steve now over a couple of months, we've had him in on the ops board and I've been having a few conversations with him on the phone and I think we'd just come to the point where we felt he'd taken the club as far as he could this season and it just wasn't working and we weren't getting the turnaround.
Read: Timeline of Steve Burr's tenure as manager
"We felt we had to do something to give that bit of a boost and I think we've got four games now and hopefully with bringing Macca and Ian in it'll just give them enough of a boost to get the three or four points we need to keep us up."
Olorenshaw, who replaced Grenville Millington as chairman in December, said the board had hoped the team would pick up enough points under Burr from what was viewed as a favourable run of games over Easter to get clear of danger.
But defeats to Barrow and Torquay and draws with Guiseley and Boreham Wood in the space of 10 days leaves Chester with work to do to guarantee themselves another season in the National League.
Explaining the decision to change manager with four games to go, Olorenshaw said: "It's very much we thought that when we looked at the fixtures coming up over the Easter period I think we all genuinely believed we were going to get the points that we needed that would have got us to 50 points.
"We were playing all of the teams that were around us and down below us so we didn't want to knee-jerk and react too quickly because we thought we were going to get through it but I think we've got to the point now where that's not going to happen and we've got to inject that little bit of a boost."
Burr signed a two-year contract extension towards the end of last season and will therefore be entitled to a settlement on what remained on that deal.
Olorenshaw said no figures had been discussed with Burr's representatives but stressed the board had considered the potential cost and believed it was the decision was in the best interests of the club.
He said: "We've not even talked the settlement through with his agent yet. His agent contacted us on Thursday evening and that's still to be resolved and to be fair I think that's something that's best to be kept confidential for now.
Recap: More on the decision to sack Steve Burr and fan reaction
"There's a lot of talk and a lot of talk about different numbers and what that could be. One of things that we did take into consideration was the fact that there was this financial risk so we didn't take any decision lightly and we did consider all of that implication and I think rather that get into any detail I'll just say that it has been considered and we're not exposing the club to any sort of danger by taking this risk.
"Yes there will be some cost but we've also got to look at what would be the cost if we did go down on season tickets, the revenue and everything else. You've got to weigh up the cost of doing one thing with the cost of not doing something."
Chester will be inviting applications for the position of manager but that process will not start until the club knows which division it will be in for next season.
