Kenny keen to avoid Cup shock
Kenny Cunningham has warned that Birmingham must match Leeds for passion and commitment to avoid another shock FA Cup exit at St Andrews.
The Republic of Ireland international admits he is still hurt by last season’s defeat at home to Sunderland, when the draw looked to be opening for an easy route to the final.
He knows Leeds will be fired up to cause an upset and claim a Premiership scalp but wants Blues to use the tie as a platform to kick-start their season after successive defeats to Newcastle and Bolton.
He said: “The FA Cup is always important although I wouldn’t put any huge significance on it.
“It’s just when you lose two games you just want to get back to winning ways as quickly as possible, whether that’s a league game or a cup game.
“It won’t be an easy game. Leeds will bring a lot of supporters and it will be a big occasion for them so if we are expecting some kind of walk-over, it’s not going to happen. They’re going to be fired up for this game so we are going to have to match them otherwise we are going to find ourselves on the wrong end of another disappointing result.
“We’ll have to get ourselves up after the disappointment of losing to Bolton on Tuesday and respond in the right way on Saturday.”
Cunningham added: “Losing to Sunderland really hurt last year. It was a low point but Sunderland were the better team on the night.
“As the draw panned out, to see them at Old Trafford in an FA Cup semi-final was gut-wrenching to be honest.
“But that’s gone. We’ve got to look ahead, we have an opportunity to progress on Saturday and hopefully we can do that.
“Leeds are a division below us but they’ve got some talented young players and there will be no pressure on them going into the game and a lot of expectation on our shoulders. It’s a potential banana skin. It’s the FA Cup and anything can happen. We’ve got to approach it in the right frame of mind, be professional.
“If we can match them in terms of energy and commitment then hopefully the quality we have in our team will shine through.”
