Francis sacked by Palace as 'mediocrity' riles Jordan

History repeated itself for Trevor Francis yesterday when he was summoned from the practice pitch and told he was no longer manager of Crystal Palace. "Well, lads, I've been sacked – have a good summer holiday," was his pointed parting shot to the Palace players, whose 4-1 victory at Grimsby in what proved his final match had eerie echoes of Birmingham City's 3-1 win at Barnsley immediately before the Blues dismissed him.

Simon Jordan, the Palace chairman, delivered the news personally to Francis, who was supervising set-piece drills. Relations between the pair had been strained for some time, with the team lying 11th in the First Division, 13 points adrift of the play-off places. Before the success at Grimsby, Palace had won only once in eight matches and failed to carry into their League performances the panache which saw them win at Liverpool in the FA Cup before making an unlucky exit against Leeds United.

Jordan explained his action and ambitions in a terse statement on the club's website: "I'm totally committed to playing in the Premiership and I will ensure that the new manager can achieve this aspiration." Palace's senior coaches, Steve Kember and Terry Bullivant, will serve as caretaker managers, starting with the visit of Rotherham United today – Francis' 49th birthday.

Francis had been instructed three weeks ago to produce a document outlining his strategy for winning promotion next season. This "blueprint", compiled in collaboration with Kember and Bullivant, did not impress Jordan. "The report they produced wasn't really the mentality that I wanted," he said. "I wanted a road map to the Premiership."

Jordan's move yesterday was a surprise more in terms of its timing than the decision itself. He had made plain his dissatisfaction with the team's downward drift once it became clear that a second successive mid-table finish was the best Palace could hope for. Although the focus of his anger was the squad rather than Francis, it was evident he felt a lack of motivation and professionalism was rife.

"I'm not having this group of players here next season," Jordan had said. "There will be dramatic changes during the summer because there are players here with no real appetite for success. They are earning eight grand a week and have a 'Big-time Charlie' attitude. I'm not watching next season what I've had to watch this season. We've been a disgrace at times. Given the £30m I've spent, mediocrity is not acceptable."

Francis will no doubt point out that he was allowed only a fraction of that figure for team-building after arriving in November 2001. He sold his principal striker, Clinton Morrison, to his previous club, Birmingham, for £5m; to the manager, indeed, whose defection to the Midlands club created the vacancy in London SE25: Steve Bruce. The sight of Bruce instantly delivering the promotion that eluded him during four seasons at St Andrew's merely compounded the pressure on Francis.

He did not always respond tactfully to the challenge, underlining his reputation as a fractious character who did not relate well to players whom he saw as falling short of the standards he maintained during his illustrious playing career. That image started when, in his first managerial post, the former England striker fined Queen's Park Rangers' Martin Allen £1,500 for attending the birth of his baby. This season, Francis struck one of Palace's goalkeepers, Alex Kolinko, after the Latvian international allegedly laughed in the dug-out when the team conceded a goal.

Francis has been unable to repeat at Palace or Birmingham, where he endured a series of failures in the play-offs, the success he enjoyed in his first extended run in management, with Sheffield Wednesday. After succeeding Ron Atkinson, initially as player-manager, he guided Wednesday to seventh place in the Premiership and to two Wembley finals, both of which were lost to Arsenal, in the second of his four seasons at Hillsborough.