After the debacle at Lincoln City where the club were unceremoniously and embarrassingly dumped out of the FA Cup, chairman Simon Corney has punished the players by no longer having free breakfasts and lunches at the club. They now have to provide their own food. Stephen Robinson said,
“The chairman took away the food and there had to be a consequence. The boys were fed and watered and treated very well. They haven't had that for two weeks and rightly so - there had to be a punishment. We stopped the Christmas parties and everything we could and the boys wanted that as well, as they knew there had to be a consequence to that performance. We can't blame that. They are professional footballers and everyone who goes into an office doesn't get their food made for them. They have to take it on board themselves, so if they can't play Saturday, Tuesday, Saturday, we can only control so much of it. They have to live their lives right and I'm not saying they don't, but there is certainly something missing when it comes to the third game in a week.”
“The table doesn't look pretty and it doesn't lie. We are where we are because we have not been consistent enough and we have not scored goals.You put in a brilliant performance on Tuesday night, a brilliant performance at Oxford with 10 men and then you get that (the loss to Southend). It's inexplicable. It seems to be that when players play on Tuesday nights, we really struggle with three games in a week. They have to look in the mirror at how they live their lives. We can only control them for four hours of the day in terms of fitness and what they do. The players were in a privileged position where a lot of things were done for them and that's been taken away, so they have to deal with that.”