Rudi Garcia Officially Sacked as Roma Manager

Well, it only took, what, four days, but Roma has finally officially announced the sacking of Rudi Garcia as manager of the club. I'm not quite certain why they chose to drag this out so long, it hardly seems fair to Garcia, but the club just released an official statement regarding the coaching change.

AS Roma confirms that Rudi Garcia, and his assistants Frederic Bompard and Claude Fichaux, will cease to manage its first team with immediate effect.

Garcia, who won Ligue 1 with Lille in 2011, was unveiled as the Giallorossi's new coach on 12 June 2013. He led the team to 10 wins in the first 10 league matches of the 2013-14 season and went on to record consecutive second place finishes in Serie A. Given recent results, however, the club have decided to move in a new direction

While the time had long since come for a change, you can't help but feel a little bad for Garcia, who was, by all accounts, a good man and certainly one loved by the players. But, as the statement says, this was all about his recent results, which have been poor.

James Pallotta concluded the press release by saying:

On behalf of myself and everyone at AS Roma, I'd like to thank Rudi Garcia for all of his hard work since joining the club. We've all enjoyed some great moments during his time at Roma but we believe that this is the right time for a change.

As we expected, Alberto De Rossi will take the reins at today's training while Luciano Spalletti is en route from Miami. We've got plenty more coming about Spalletti's return to Roma, including an official farewell to Rudi Garcia and perhaps, just maybe, the return of another old friend.