Citing a desire to ‘move forward,’ Boston Red Sox officials announced Monday they will not exercise their contract option to keep manager Grady Little for an extra year, thus ending his two-year tenure as manager of the ballclub.

Red Sox President and CEO Larry Lucchino and Senior Vice President and General Manager Theo Epstein, who made the announcement at a press conference at Fenway Park, said the team and Little parted ways with ‘no anger or raging voices.’

‘We told him we thought he did a good job,’ Epstein said. ‘He would come back only with 100 percent support [of management].’

Little leaves in the wake of the Red Sox loss to the New York Yankees in seven games in the American League Championship Series. Lucchino and Epstein dismissed wide speculation that Little was let go because of his decision to allow starting pitcher Pedro Martinez to pitch through a Yankees rally in the decisive seventh game.

‘We assured him that decision was not based on a single moment or a single game,’ Lucchino said.

Lucchino and Epstein, along with Red Sox Principal Owner John W. Henry and Red Sox Chairman Tom Werner, said they discussed the future of the ballclub in the days after the team lost and made a unanimous decision to release Little.

Lucchino and Epstein informed Little of his termination Monday morning by phone, thanking him for the success he brought to the Red Sox.

‘He took it very well,’ Lucchino said. ‘He thanked us for the opportunity he had been given to manage the Red Sox and to manage in the big leagues.’

In a statement released Monday afternoon, Little praised the team and thanked the club for giving him the chance to be manager.

‘Boston is a great place,’ Little said in the statement. ‘The Red Sox fans are the most passionate in all of sports. I appreciate all of the support they gave me.’

‘We came up short of our goal,’ he added later in the statement, ‘and to the Red Sox Nation, I say: I hurt with each of you.’

Little said the decision was made entirely by Red Sox management.

‘The organization made a decision to go in a different direction,’ Little said. ‘Whoever they hire to replace me will be getting the best bunch of players in baseball and a solid general manager.’

Lucchino said in a statement that Little ‘was just what the doctor ordered’ when they hired him two years ago.

‘He took over a clubhouse not known for its harmony and brought unity and an atmosphere of winning,’ the statement said. ‘He successfully read the personality of our players and led them in an intense, sustained competition from which they never quit.’

Lucchino and Epstein said Red Sox players, despite an attachment to Little, understand his firing. Many have speculated that Little enhanced the mood of a clubhouse that was troublesome just three years ago under manager Joe Kerrigan.

‘If we took a poll of players, it would be overwhelmingly supportive of Grady,’ Lucchino said.

But Lucchino said the club is searching for a ‘long-term’ solution; keeping Little for the final year of his contract was playing for the short-term and was ‘not in the cards.’

Epstein said the Red Sox will begin a potentially long search process to look for a manager who could lead the team for many years.

‘Grady did not fail. We did not fail,’ Epstein said. ‘He was a good manager, but we need to go forward.’

Neither Epstein nor Lucchino would comment on the names of possible successors, but Monday’s Boston Herald, citing a Red Sox source, mentioned former Cleveland Indians manager Charlie Manuel and former Red Sox second baseman Jerry Remy, a color commentator on televised Red Sox games, as front-running candidates. However, The Providence Journal later reported that Red Sox officials ruled Manuel out as a candidate.

Lucchino and Epstein would only say the next manager will likely have characteristics similar to Little.

‘The next manager of the Red Sox will have a lot of Grady Little in him,’ Lucchino said.