Speaking to Marca, the 60-year-old coach, who led Villarreal to a third-place finish in LaLiga last season ahead of Atlético Madrid, set out his version of how negotiations over a new deal broke down.
"I take it with complete naturalness. The club's management is the one that decides."
Marcelino contrasted the terms offered to him with those given to his successor.
"And if they prefer to give three years to a new coach, who they don't know, with a forgettable season at Rayo, rather than give two or three to the one they already had, who came here in a complicated situation, with 12 points from 13 matches."
He pointed to the turnaround achieved during that first campaign back at the club.
"And then the team in that season gets 34 points in the second half of the campaign. We achieve transfers, we generate value."
Marcelino also referenced the club's business in the transfer market under his watch.
"The following season we finish fifth. We also make transfers worth more than €100 million, we rebuild the team and finish third."
He said the body of work made the decision difficult to reconcile.
"And they consider that they shouldn't give continuity to a coach across several seasons, added to a previous excellent experience, where this coaching staff had taken over the team in the Second Division and at the end of our spell it was fourth."
Marcelino added that he understood the club's reasoning even if he disagreed with it.
"That is understandable, I understand it perfectly."
The breakdown, according to multiple reports in the Spanish press, centred on Villarreal offering Marcelino a one-year extension when he had been seeking a minimum of two. Marcelino has previously said that gap was "non-negotiable" from his side, and the contract expired on June 30 without an agreement.
Asked about his next move, Marcelino was candid about the difficulty of choosing his next post compared with simply coaching.
"It's much easier to coach than to choose. And choosing is complicated, because our entire career has told us what we need to take into account when making that choice."
He acknowledged that previous decisions had not always been weighed carefully enough.
"Because there were moments in those decisions where perhaps we didn't value or analyse things enough, we got overconfident, and those were the moments where we had the least success."
Marcelino, whose 298 matches in charge make him the most experienced coach in Villarreal's history across two spells, has been linked with interest from clubs in England and Italy, and has said a move abroad represents a real option as he considers his next project.