Saints start their 2014 FA Cup campaign with a home tie against Burnley who have more locally born players in their first team than Saints.

There is a little part of Lancashire that is forever Southampton and that is Burnley, their frontline that has fired them to the verge of promotion to the Premier League consists of Sam Vokes and Danny Ings, both of whom are local lads and supported Saints in their youth, they are joined by Brian Stock who himself was born in Winchester before joining Bournemouth.

But the Saints connection doesn't end there, Joseph Mills who has the rare distinction of being a Saints player who has played at Wembley for the club, joined last summer, although injury sustained whilst on loan at Oldham means that he wont be available for selection.

All the noises coming out of St Mary's about the FA Cup are encouraging, its seems to suggest that we are going to take the competition seriously, with the season starting to collapse in the Premier League and even the most avid Saints supporter accepting that a top six finish is going to be beyond us, the focus could well be on the FA Cup as a route to glory and indeed Europe.

Without tempting fate, if Saints can win 3 more games then relegation will not be a worry so they could perhaps concentrate on the cup competition.

I have said this many times, if we want to be taken seriously as a football club, then we need to be competing for honours, that means cups and not 8th position in the Premier, building a football club cannot be done overnight and the first step in letting people know you are serious is to do well in the FA Cup.

The preview on the official club website stated that we had not had a cup run since 2005 when we lost to Manchester United in the quarter finals, this is perhaps not true, in 2009/10 we had to enter the competition in the first round for the first time in over half a century, we reached the 5th round before going out to Pompey, it was a cup run whichever way you look at it. the following season we reached the 4th round beating then Premier Club Blackpool in the 3rd round before going out to Manchester United at the next stage.

Since then though we havent really got going in the competition, but now is as good a time as any to start.

The key will be to put out a side that combines a backbone of first team regulars, along with some of the fringe players, if the previews put out by Saints are any guide and they usually are, I expect Danny Fox to play, with Luke Shaw picking up a knock last week and Nathan Clyne also not 100% this seems to be logical.

Sam Gallagher has also been mentioned and it would not surprise me to see him given a start.

So key to Saints is having a reasonable quota of first teamer's along with some hungry fringe players, one mistake i don't want to see repeated in the second half of the season is where these fringe players were barely used meaning not only weren't they match fit, but they had no real incentive that they would get in the team, hopefully that has changed and we will see some of them look to challenge for a place.

But will Burnley themselves take it seriously ? I would expect to see them field a weakened side, their priority is most definately automatic promotion from the Championship and that wont be easy with Leicester 4 points ahead of them and QPR only 1 behind, not to mention Derby & Nottingham Forest all within sniffing distance, their squad will not be large enough to be able to keep up their challenge if they pick up injuries etc, so I don't think this competition will be a priority.

If it goes to form then Saints should win, what they want to avoid and Burnley too I would imagine is a replay up in Lancashire, apart from of course Jay Rodriguez who would get to go home and see his family and have a nostalgic return to Turf Moor

Photo: Action Images via Reuters