Had he been given the choice Freddie Sears admits he would have played in Tuesday’s FA Cup third round replay defeat at Portsmouth.

But Sears and most of his senior colleagues were instead at home as Town crashed out of the competition at the opening hurdle for the sixth year in a row, manager Mick McCarthy opting to field a largely inexperienced side in the 2-1 reverse at Fratton Park.

McCarthy made 11 changes to the team from the league clash with Preston three days earlier and hopes to reap the benefit this weekend when he will revert to his regular line-up for the visit to Birmingham, a side just one place and two points worse off than seventh-placed Town.

Sears admits there is added pressure to get a result at St Andrew’s and said: “We had it before because after the Manchester United game in the Capital One Cup we played Bristol City at home and drew.

“So, yes, there is a lot of pressure on us to win the game at Birmingham. It’s going to be tough but we have given ourselves the best possible chance of winning it.

“It works both ways — if we win at Birmingham everyone will probably forget about the FA Cup but if we lose it will mean more people saying it was wrong to put out a weaker team in the FA Cup.

“We trust the gaffer and we trust the staff, and we are just looking forward to Birmingham on Saturday now.”

Asked how disappointed he was at being out of the FA Cup the ex-Colchester striker added: “Yes, disappointed, but to be fair to Portsmouth I think they probably deserved it.

“In the first game they were brilliant and the gaffer said from early on — we saw it at Manchester United as well — that we wouldn’t be playing our strongest team.

“The other boys need minutes because they need to be ready when called upon and overall it’s probably the right decision.

“It was quite a normal week for most of the boys who played against Preston last Saturday. We trained on Monday and Tuesday — just because we weren’t required at Portsmouth we weren’t at home doing nothing.

“I was at home listening to the updates from Portsmouth on Sky Sports, hoping the boys would get the right result and we’d get to have a crack at Bournemouth in the next round.

“But we always knew it would be tough after seeing how good Portsmouth were in the first game. They probably deserved to win that one when we got a late equaliser.

“I want to play every game so I wanted to play at Portsmouth on Tuesday but sometimes your body and your mental condition can’t take that.

“It took a lot out of us against Leeds last Tuesday — it was probably our best performance of the season so far. We worked tirelessly and if you saw our running stats there aren’t many teams who could better them.

“It does take its toll on you and to be fair the gaffer made the decision early on about his team to play at Portsmouth. We knew we weren’t going to be travelling and got on with it. Since then our eyes have been on Birmingham.

“Sometimes you do need the manager to tell you that you can’t play in every game. If you asked all the boys I’m pretty sure they would all say they want to play in every game but there’s 22 who would tell you that.

“You need the manager to say what is going to happen. The fitness coach and the physio sometimes step in too. We had a few knocks and injuries from the Preston game and we can’t afford to have too many of them at this stage of the season.”

Photo: Action Images

essex57 added 08:23 - Jan 22 Well said Freddie you speak as you play with honesty interesting, he kept up to date with the score on Sky does he find Brenners commentary boring as well!
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BlueKush added 11:11 - Jan 22 In the context of regional sportscasters, Brenner's top notch. He can't polish a turd and there's been some turds to be fair.
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