I always bang on about taking the FA Cup and indeed the league Cup more seriously, but this time there is another reason why we should be looking to put out a full side in this competition.
The FA Cup has been devalued in recent years with Premier sides putting out reserve sides in the competition, to me this is very strange, with only a handful of teams standing any chance of even qualifying for the Champions League let alone winning the Premier League, the FA Cup and indeed the League Cup represent the only chance for most clubs to actually taste a bit of glory.
I read somewhere that Mauricio Pochettino did not see the FA Cup as a priority, well what is our priority then ? do we want to be a football club trying to win things or are we merely a cash cow, for club like Saints at the moment 8th place is perhaps the height of our hopes, 7th a dream and after that we have little hope, there are clubs out there with much more resources who will clean up the top six as happens every season.
Yes Saints can build towards that dream of qualifying for the Champions league, but that building will be slow unless the Liebherr's decide to throw in the type of money that Man City and Chelsea have had thrown at them, interesting to note that the two biggest spending clubs have only a title apiece between them in the last seven seasons.
So are we a football club challenging for honours and European qualification even if it is only the Europa League or are we merely chasing the extra money from finishing a few places higher than 14th every season, perhaps instead of a star on jersey's to signify honours won, some club's will have a £ sign to indicate how much money they have won in a season.
But for the Burnley game Saints have a more importnat reason as to why they should put out a strong side, that is to try and get back to winning ways, in the final stages of the New Years Day defeat against Chelsea we looked shell shocked, a nine game run with only 1 win and 6 defeats has knocked the confidence out of us, we have got out of winning ways and we have got into bad habits and the Burnley game gives us an opportunity to start to rebuild all of those traits and get the side back in shape.
On such a run as we have been on, there is no point in worrying about getting players injured in the FA Cup, it could be said that those that will come in would do no worse anyway, so the Burnley game is a great opportunity to get the team back on course and actually used to winning games again, earlier in the season we expected to win and that shone through, now the opposite is true.
This is not to demean Burnley who themselves are a fine side and looking for a return to the Premier League, this wont be an easy game, however if we still want to be in the Premier to welcome them if they achieve their aim, then we need to get back to winning ways and good habits soon.