Curle thinks football 'has gone a bit soft' but he will not go easy on his players after cup debacle

Keith Curle will lay his feelings bare when he addresses Monday's FA Cup debacle with his squad despite thinking football 'has gone a bit soft' in the way managers are allowed to talk to their players.

Curle tends to blend the old with the new in his approach to management but he is rarely afraid to make his feelings clear when speaking to his players after a poor performance, particularly behind closed doors.

And there will be nowhere to hide for Town's squad after their shock FA Cup defeat to non-league Oxford City on Monday night.

"I don't burn my bridges but when I do criticise somebody, it's done professionally and it's done honestly and it's open to interpretation," said Curle. "In the past managers would walk in and start throwing tea cups and kicking boots around and give out the hairdryer treatment but I think football has moved on from that.

"But I also think football has gone a bit soft whereby you have to be politically correct now when you tell a player that his performance wasn't good enough. Back in the day, how some managers and coaches used to tell players was more old-school, but it's about being honest because there's nothing wrong with saying 'not good enough'."

Curle believes honesty is the best policy and he hopes that will do the trick and trigger a reaction from his players when Accrington Stanley visit the PTS this weekend.

"Too many players in the modern day hide under the umbrella of 'unlucky'," he added. "I've never been a person who believes in players being unlucky. A better thing to say is 'not good enough, you can do better and we need you to do better'.

"There's nothing wrong with that so don't shy away from it. I know with the modern day coaches there's a way you need to speak to players but if you keep telling a player he's unlucky, they carry on doing the wrong things.

"Tell somebody that it's not good enough and that's not what I want. Can they then handle that criticism? It's not personal, it's professional and honest criticism and the higher up you go in this game, you've got to be able to take on board criticism and learn from it."