KENNY DALGLISH yesterday spoke for the first time of his sadness at leaving Blackburn, the club he led to Premiership glory only last year.

And the 45-year-old Scot hinted that the decision to leave Ewood Park was more the club's than his own: "The club and I both came to the same conclusion at roughly the same time that it was better for me to pack it in. I rang the chairman Robert Coar on Wednesday and told him my thoughts and he told me that the club had come to the same conclusion.

"My reasoning was that I just could not get job satisfaction. I told the club from the beginning, from the day I first arrived at Ewood Park, that we would sign all the players we wanted but that I would never want to cause a financial liability. We need to go back a year to the concept of the job that I took on, when I told the club after we won the championship that I wanted to be relieved of the job as manager. I took that decision because I didn't want the demanding day to day involvement of management.

"I told the club then that would go if they wanted me to or stay in some capacity if they wished. When they asked me to stay on with the title director of football, I saw the job as speaking when I was spoken to and helping if asked. I think there is a void in football for a position like that and that's why I was prepared to take it.

"But obviously a year on the club felt that there was not a great need for that facility and decided to call it a day. It's their prerogative and my feelings were along similar lines. It just didn't work out.

"People have asked me whether Blackburn lost the magic now that Alan Shearer and I are both gone, but that is for other people to judge and decide. I want to see the club have more success. I left them in credit on transfers and I appreciate the effort the players put in.

"I certainly feel a million times better than when I last left a club."

As for the future? "I am not finished with football, but football might be finished with me. There is going to be a lot of speculation but there is nothing imminent to my knowledge," concluded Dalglish.