Midfielder Jimmy Bullard has been on the phone to Portman Road trying to find out what’s going on since being suspended for his night out in Newcastle and subsequent late arrival at training last week. Assistant boss Chris Hutchings says Bullard and Michael Chopra showed disrespect to their team-mates and everyone at the club.
Hutchings said: "I know that he’s was phoning people at the club when we were playing last week, wanting to know the score and wanting to know how everything is going.
"Jimmy loves football and the hardest thing for Jimmy is to be away from football. We’ve had to make a stand and that’s the stand we took. He has to abide by that and he hasn’t got long before he’s back. He’ll be chomping at the bit.”
Bullard will be back at Playford Road after completing his suspension next Friday with Hutchings feeling that the 33-year-old and Chopra, who was fined, owe everyone else at Portman Road after their indiscretion: "It’s disrespect, not only to his team-mates but to himself and the staff, everybody at the football club.
"Michael Chopra’s the same, they know they’ve let people down and they’ve got to repay us now.”
Meanwhile, the former full-back says the Blues management team will be out searching for prospective signings next week: "We’re always looking. At this moment in time it’s OK.
"We’re constantly out at games, we’ve all been at games through the weeks. We’ll be going next week because it’s a bit of a free week for us, so we’ll be monitoring players and going to games.”
Elsewhere, Lee Martin missed out on the Championship Player of the Month award for February, the gong going to Reading keeper Adam Federici. Martin was nominated alongside the Australian glovesman and Southampton striker Rickie Lambert. Ex-Blue Dean Bowditch won the League One award.