Kota Kinabalu: Premier League team head coach David McCreery dropped a bombshell by handing in his resignation to the Sabah Football Association, claiming personal reasons on Monday.Sabah FA Deputy President Datuk Lawrence Gimbang in a press conference held on Tuesday evening said the executive committee which was chaired by him earlier has accepted his resignation.
"When a coach wants to resign with personal reasons, we have to respect that and to accept his decision.
"We wish him all the best in his future undertaking and he in return also thanked us for given him the chance to coach the state team," said Lawrence.
Lawrence said they are now looking for a replacement for David but there is no time frame on that.
"We have to start to prepare for next season early and with the team still have something to play for this season, we are definitely on the look out for a suitable coach but at the same time we wont be rushing into making a hasty decision."
"As for the time being, the team will be under the care of Johnny Dominicus, Andrew Majanggim and Mark Damun."
Meanwhile, team manager Datuk Yusof Kassim said the players' spirits remained high despite the news of David's resignation which he conveyed to them at the team's training session in Universiti Malaysia Sabah (UMS) on Tuesday morning.
He said he called on the players to show a strong character and concentrate on winning the three remaining matches.
Yusof added that he also advised Johnny not to change too much tactically from David as the team are in a good run of form before the break.
David has been missing from the team's training session for more than a week with illness and his quitting was a major setback for the team as they were beginning to play well under the former Manchester United and Northern Ireland international who was recruited in July last year and whose contract is set to expire on July 11.
The team which was ill prepared before the start of the season without a proper training ground due to the closure of the Likas Stadium for renovation work, saw them struggling in the first half of the season despite the 2-1 win over KL SPA in the season opener.
They collected only nine points from a possible 33 that put paid to their chances of an immediate climb back to the Super League next season.
The second half of the season saw the team beginning to gel and managing to win five matches to date with three matches to go putting them in a very strong position for a Malaysia Cup play-off with the bottom two teams in the Super League.
Their coming match is against PDRM this Friday at the Likas Stadium.
