Gary Johnson's fate as Bristol City's manager was sealed after a seemingly trivial incident involving one of his players on Tuesday night.

Angry that winger Ivan Sproule had not been performing to his usual standard, Johnson berated him from the sideline in the first half.

The row between the two continued and it is understood that Johnson and Sproule clashed again in the dressing room at half-time.

There was open dissent in the dressing room and the die was finally cast when City chairman Steve Lansdown was made aware of the events at Plymouth.

In hindsight, the manager's attitude after the Plymouth game was also indicative that things were not quite right.

His post-match press conference began with him sweeping a recorder onto the floor and dealing with questions from the media tersely and without his usual humour.

Hours later and he and Lansdown were in talks to bring to an end their four-and-a-half year relationship.

The chairman is a successful businessman, a decent man and a very good chairman who has backed Johnson since September 2005, financially and emotionally.

But what he was confronted with now was just too much to bear – a player revolt.

This was something that could harm the club Lansdown loves, wants to see succeed and in which he has invested millions of pounds.

The Sproule incident showed Johnson had lost the respect and trust of certain players. And once that happened, he was doomed.

It had come just two days after the 2-0 defeat at Reading, in which the manager was seen arguing with many of the senior players at the club – notably Louis Carey, Paul Hartley and Lewin Nyatanga.

In football parlance it is called "losing the dressing room" and for fans, it has appeared for a couple of months now that this is what has been happening behind closed doors at Bristol City. There has been a decline in performances and results and die-hard City supporters have been complaining for weeks about the team's displays.

For many fans, the sense of fun and enjoyment had gone out of their trips to Ashton Gate.

Mumblings of discontent among a few vocal fans began to spread and even Mr Johnson was aware of these feelings.

But he always tried to keep them in context, claiming that some fans will always be unhappy with something at the club.

Ever since he was named as City's manager, his management style was to nurture a "them and us" attitude.

He and the players had a bond that could not be broken by anyone outside their tight circle.

And while this remained intact, Johnson had some protection against fans' criticism – but once this had been breached, his time was up.

A vocal minority of fans have always been critical of Johnson for picking his son, Lee, in front of what they believed were better players.

Some openly claimed that Lee was only being picked because he was the manager's son – but Lee is worthy of a place in the squad and even the starting line-up.

But Johnson has always been very defensive when it came to questions about his son's place in the team.

Further criticism – perhaps with more justification – came from fans over the performance of his brother, Peter, as the club's chief scout.

For the past year some of the players – many of them foreign and therefore cheaper to employ than British players – have been signed by Johnson based on the recommendation of his brother. One of those players, the Slovak Peter Styvar, was signed by City as a striker even though his preferred position was left back.

The 28-year-old joined City from MSK Zilina, having impressed with a goal against Aston Villa in a Uefa cup tie.

But he later admitted that he was really a left back who had been converted to a left-sided midfielder and had only been pressed into playing up front for his side because of a player shortage.

The Costa Rican international Alvaro Saborio was another signing who failed to impress the fans at Ashton Gate. He had come to the club on a season-long loan from Swiss Club FC Sion.

But having scored twice in just six months, he returned to Switzerland with the fans asking "if he had really been as good as they were told, why wasn't he playing at a higher level?"

Throughout, Lansdown had backed Johnson's judgement almost without question and over recent weeks City had brought in loan players such as Jamal Campbell-Ryce and Stefan Maierhofer to try to push towards an ever-receding play-off place.

Many fans also blamed the foreign imports for depriving young players who had come through City's academy the chance of breaking into the first team.

Players such as Welsh under-21 internationals Christian Ribeiro and James Wilson should have been given the chance to show what they can do.

But Johnson was always loath to pitch them into the heat of a Championship battle, preferring to have them sat on the bench.

Relegation from the Championship could not be contemplated by either the fans or the management.

Financially, it would be crippling, while the prospect of having to face the bitter cross-city rivals in League One was something beyond any City fan.

But attendances this season have been down on the previous two years, thanks in part to the economic climate but also to fans claiming that City just are not playing the type of football that they want to pay to watch.

The club could always rely on attracting up to 13,000 season ticket holders who always paid up-front.

But a scheme to encourage supporters to buy season tickets for 2010-11 had been disappointing, with fewer than 6,000 fans taking up the offer at a time when football clubs are under severe financial pressure – and City are in debt to the tune of £6 million.

The final word goes to a contact within the City hierarchy who told the Post several months ago that he feared Johnson could not cope with big-name players.

Speaking in confidence, he said that Johnson seemed to find it difficult to get on with players who did not do things his way.

He said: "We have seen it over the past four years, players such as Adriano Basso, Marcus Stewart, Lee Trundle and Nick Carle – all good players who have been moved on by Johnson.

"He surrounded himself with players who were happy to go along with his plan when the going is good. But what will happen when the going gets tough?"

So it seems that Johnson's reign at the helm of Bristol City has ended in the most unlikely of circumstances but nevertheless, he will still be seen as one of the club's most successful managers.