Cameron Jerome says he has never suffered a cup giant-killing so he doesn’t want to start today when Championship Luton host League Two Harrogate in the third round of the world’s oldest knockout competition.
The Yorkshire side have already dished out a last-minute FA Cup shock at the home of former winners Portsmouth in the last round, while the Hatters haven’t played since December 11 after a spate of positive Covid cases on Christmas Day.
Jerome, who signed on a free in the summer from MK Dons, hasn’t played for even longer. His last appearance came on November 19 in a substitute’s cameo at QPR.
His Luton debut came in the shock Carabao Cup shock defeat on penalties at League Two Stevenage but, as far as the FA Cup is concerned Jerome memories are relatively unscathed.
“I’ve had draws against equal opponents where it’s a flip of a coin but I’ve generally done quite well if we were a bigger team and drawn an underdog.
“We’ve managed to get past that and get to the stage where, if you lose to someone of similar ability or same division, it’s not as bad.
“You never want to be that team and people will be looking at a Championship club against a League Two club as a potential banana skin.
“Harrogate will probably, and rightfully so, be coming here with nothing to fear but obviously we have to be professional, get the job done and make sure our name is in the hat for the next round of the cup.”
He added: “I suppose people look at it as a Championship club against a League Two club, a banana skin.
“Us guys not having a game for so long, and the disruption we’ve had over the Christmas period, Harrogate will probably, and rightly so, be coming here and saying there’s nothing to fear, but we’ll be professional and want to get the job done and make sure our name is in the hat for the next round of the cup.
“These games are about application and attitude, they’re going to come here full of confidence, wanting to cause an upset and we’ve just got to make sure that doesn’t happen, we want to progress in this competition, it’s something we’re taking seriously.
“I’m sure the manager has spoken about that. He hasn’t spoke about the to the players, and I don’t think he really needs to speak about that, because as a player you know that.
“This is an opportunity for us to progress in the competition. OK, we’re probably not one of the favourites to win it and we’re probably not going to win it, but we want to go as far as we can.
“We want to test ourselves, we want to be an underdog, we want to go to a bigger team and cause an upset there, show how good we are, what we;re about.
“So, if you approach it with the right mindset, with the right attitude, then there’s no reason for us to come unstuck.”
Jerome was part of the Birmingham City side that shocked Arsenal in the 2011 League Cup final, but the FA Cup hasn’t brought too many strong memories.
He said: “Over the years I think the quarter-finals is the best I’ve done when we lost to Bolton when I was at Birmingham. I’ve not really had too many big ties, I had one when I was at Cardiff and we played Arsenal at Highbury which was a special game. We lost 2-1 but we gave a good account of ourselves on the day. That was a good moment, the last cup game to ever have been played at that ground.”
But the striker remains a fan of the competition and he said: “It is such a renowned and well-known competition across the world, it’s steeped in history and for teams not in the league who get to compete in this competition.
“The fairytale stories are there every year with a team who makes it into the third round. It’s a magical competition and it produces that uncertainty, everyone is looking through the fixtures for the potential banana skin and as a club who have a fixture against a lower league opposition, you just have to make sure that isn’t you. You have to be professional like I said and get out there and do your job.”
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