Saints take on the Sky Blues in front of a full house at St Mary's and look to progress in a competition in which they so nearly reached the final last season, with 5,000 Coventry fans set to provide a noisy backing for their team, the home fans will need to respond in full.

This is one of those proverbial ice patches with a Premier League side taking on an up and coming team from the division below, Coventry have been erratic of late but still sit in 10th place in the Championship only 5 points off a play off spot and with games in hand.

They will be looking to provide an upset and will be raring to go.

For their fans this is a return to the big time, they have had a torrid time for the past 12 years since they were relegated from the Premier League and that got worse when they were taken over by SISU and for the best part of the 15 years or so since that event they have been in the doldrums, indeed they have only returned to the Championship last season after being relegated in 2012, ironically the final game of that season was at St Mary's when the despondent visiting supporters had to watch Saints celebrate their return to the top flight with a full on pitch invasion.

One man who might have a wry smile is former Saints Chairman Rupert Lowe, a much vilified figure with many Saints fans, he did in fact rally the shareholders back in 2007 to block the SISU attempt to buy Saints, initially many felt it was another crime in his book, but history shows that it could have been us who dropped into League 2 and had to become tenants at another ground after losing our home stadium if SISU had taken us over.

In the past Saints games against Coventry were often tense affairs, both sides spent much of the 1990's fighting against relegation and a clash between the two sides often had a lot riding on it.

Ironically 10 years ago in when we both left the Championship in different directions we played them in the 3rd round of the FA Cup, they were then still at the Ricoh arena or whatever it is called these days, despite being a goal down at half time, Saints fought back in the 2nd half, the equaliser coming just after the hour mark when James Ward Prowse in only his second appearance for the club and yet to make his League debut put us on level terms with Aaron Martin notching the winner in the 82nd minute.

On the bench that day was a certain Luke Shaw who had yet to make his debut but would in the next round against Millwall.

But all that is in the past and Ralph Hasenhuttl will be looking to win this game and push on to the next round, he will be looking to blood some youth though and Thierry Small, Kazeem Olaigbe & Jack Turner all in training with the first team squad this week and hoping to play some part.

Normally Ralph likes to play a team in the FA Cup with a good strong foundation but with the odd youngster and fringe player thrown in for good measure that could well be the case in this game.

So it will be far from an easy game, the Sky Blues are up for it and as we found in the 3rd round against Championship opposition, they can make it very difficult for top flight sides , hopefully we won't be impacted by having to play 3/4 of the game with 10 men this time.

So a full house and the FA cup, that used to mean something, but although some Saints fans will feel that it doesn't matter anymore, try telling that to 5,000 Coventry fans who have just endured 21 years of mostly struggle, something that as mentioned earlier could easily have been us.

A fair chunk of the crowd on Saturday won't have been old enough to have gone the last time we played them in the Premier League, indeed some won't have even have been born, but this game will have the same edge that fixtures against Coventry did for most of the 1990's.

They will have a loud and noisy backing, the home fans have to match that, no whinging about not having the Northam End, it is all about getting behind the team and roaring them on, just like the FA Cup used to be like.

Photo: Action Images

Peterx added 13:32 - Feb 4 Remember Keith Houchen's diving header in the 87 final. Was clearly supporting them against Spuds. No heroics like that hopefully.
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darthvader added 23:38 - Feb 4 Going to be a tough game for sure . They shoot on sight so FF will need to make some saves . Lets hope that Man u being put out is the shock of the round . We can beat them with the way we have been playing , hoping for a good game no var shite and we come out Victorious .
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