Town boss Kieran McKenna admits that a cup run can be a double-edged sword as the Blues maintain their push for automatic promotion, particularly this season given the frustrations with postponed and abandoned matches.

Members of the Town squad which won promotion in 1991/92 have often cited their FA Cup run that year, which saw them take Liverpool to a replay and then extra-time in the fifth round, as a big confidence boost, while McKenna’s League One promotion team’s two games against Premier League-bound Burnley provided a similar uplift.

Equally, Town’s early exit at home to non-league Maidstone the following year was probably a benefit in the long run as the Blues won promotion from the Championship.

Asked whether he believes a cup run would be a help or a hindrance, McKenna said: “I think the honest answer is that the schedule is a big challenge this year.

“It’s not necessarily about the cup but I think when you’ve had the same game postponed twice [Portsmouth] on top of another game abandoned [at Blackburn] and you’re looking at our schedule this weekend and the Wrexham game in the league and there’s no free midweek until after the last international break.

“And then you’re really into the last seven games of the season and you look at the fixtures and we have Southampton, Middlesbrough and Norwich in that run.

“I’m not going to hide away from the fact that progressing in the cup this year is going to present some big, big challenges in terms of the schedule, but at the same time we really like the FA Cup.

“The club has a proud history in it. For a long time the club didn’t progress in it but in the last couple of years we’ve done a bit better. Last year we could easily have got to the quarter-finals and we’d like to have that as part of the season as well.

“Of course, we want to win the tie, of course we’re aware of the challenges of what doing that would mean.

“But I think the biggest thing we’ve spoken about with the group is that your commitment, your effort, how you prepare for the game, how you compete in a game, how we try and show bravery on the pitch and your resilience on the pitch.

“You can’t turn that on and off like a tap, so you can’t go into this game any less than 100 per cent, thinking that by the time we come back up here to Wrexham next week in the league it will be different in those categories.

“The biggest thing for me is that we go into the game [with those attitudes]. Of course, there will be changes in the team but that we show the same levels of commitment to how we prepare the game, the same levels of commitment on the pitch. We show our identity, we show togetherness, we show resilience and we go at the game 100 per cent.

“And of we can do that and win the game, then, of course, we’ll be really happy because it will be a great achievement to beat a strong Wrexham side in those circumstances.

“And if we don’t do that, then we know that we’ve continued with the same attitude that we’re looking to keep progressing.

“We know the context of the game, we know the challenges we have coming up and it’s true sometimes that a cup run can help you, sometimes it can hinder you, but you can’t go into any game of football less than 100 per cent and expect to be able to come back from that the next week.

“That’s the biggest priority, making sure we do that and if it leads to us winning the tie, then we’ll be really happy with that.”

Reflecting on the season and the Blues’ momentum, McKenna added: “I think our general performance has improved over the course of the season. It’s not always that it gets better every week indefinitely but I think over the course of the season the performances have improved.

“Even watching our last Wrexham game back, which we certainly could have won and had the chances to win, I’d like to think if the game was played now at home, we’re in an even better place.

“There’s no doubt that we’re not the finished article yet, it would be impossible, I don’t think any side thinks they’re the finished article but probably for us regularly in the league, if you look at the Derby game, how many players have been at the club more than 12 months, more than 18 months, it would be very, very few.

“The number of games that that group has played together is very, very few, so there’s still a lot of growth to come in the group.

“I think performances have been improving. There are lots of challenges in the Championship in January, February and March, so you know you’re definitely not always going to play picture perfect football, but we’ve just got to keep focusing on improving every aspect of our game and trusting that that will lead to the results we want.”

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