The TV shots of Essendon president David Evans on Saturday night showed a man whose mind was a million miles away, thinking of the unpleasant task awaiting him in the morning.

And at the hastily-convened media conference on Sunday evening called to announce the sacking of Bomber coach Matthew Knights, neither he nor chief executive Ian Robson looked as though they had slept in days.

Don't spare a moment's pity for either. Evans put up his hand to follow in his father's footsteps to be president of the Bombers, while Robson was plucked from Hawthorn to run Essendon and would be one of the more generously remunerated sports administrators in the country.

Now we get to see how good they are.

Having backed Knights for a contract extension at the end of last season, they now get a mulligan, although at $800,000 (the reported pay-out figure) it is one of the more expensive mulligans we know of.

Reportedly, the Bombers had little choice but to make the change. Knights wasn't embraced by the red-and-black nation when he got the job and one finals appearance in three years was not about to win them over. Seven wins and 14th place on the ladder this season had them demanding his head on a platter.

He was left an average list by Kevin Sheedy, but after a modicum of improvement in the first two seasons, the Bombers took a huge step back this year. Essendon looked OK when it had the ball, but terrible when it did not. Tempo footy and an ability to close the game down when the opposition got a run-on, were totally foreign concepts to Knights.

Injuries didn't help his cause, but there didn't seem to be much grit or fight to the Bombers. Take away Jobe Watson and perhaps David Hille, and you would be hard-pressed to find much leadership and even a bit of grunt among the playing group. And that is something that can be laid at the feet of the coach.

Evans and Robson would liked to have had another year with Knights at the helm given the talented group of coaches coming out of contract at the end of next season, a list that includes Mick Malthouse, Alastair Clarkson and Mark Thompson. Paul Roos will have had 12 months out of the game. But the sponsors and members had run out of patience and the loss to income to the club next season had Knights been retained may have crossed the seven-figure threshold.

In the end it was a business decision.

Mark Williams would seem to be the main choice to lead the Bombers, given we can rule James Hird out for now. The raps on Bomber assistant Alan Richardson are huge, too. And he is in the frame at Port Adelaide. But his potential handicap is that he is a low-profile assistant coach, as was Knights when he trumped the field to replace Sheedy at the end of 2007. Big clubs like their big names.

Perhaps Richardson with Williams as director of coaching will be the way to go.

But the one message anyone interested in coaching Essendon next year will surely heed. Don't talk up the state of the playing list. That's what Knights did during his pitch three years ago and it came back to bite him on the bum.