Hull City will face Birmingham City in an FA Cup replay later this month.
Hull City took their place in Monday night’s FA Cup fourth round draw for the first time in four years after coming from a goal down to earn a draw against Birmingham City, and head coach Liam Rosenior rubbished any suggestion he would be unhappy with next Tuesday night’s replay with the prize a trip to Leicester.
City looked to be heading out of the competition after Lukas Jutkiewicz headed the managerless Blues in front after 18 minutes, only for home debutant Matty Jacob to thump in from close range three minutes from time and salvage a replay.
The Tigers boss suggested his players were mentally fatigued ahead of the 1-1 draw on Saturday after a hectic festive period which ended with a 3-1 loss at Yorkshire Sheffield Wednesday on New Year’s Day. Rosenior could be forgiven for not wanting an extra fixture crammed into a busy schedule.
It’s likely City will travel to St Andrew’s next Tuesday for the replay and it will come just three days before they make the journey to Wearside to take on Sunderland in the Friday night Championship game. But Rosenior says being in the hat for the next round will suffice as both sides wait to find out who the winner will face.
“No, I’d rather be in the FA Cup. Simple,” Rosenior said when it was put to him his side could do without another game given the unavailable players. “This club gave me an unbelievable memory of my life where we went on a cup run much so I would rather be in the cup. Simple as that, and you deal with the games that you play.
“Fortunately, because of the performances of Andy Smith, Harry Vaughan and Matty Jacob, I know I can rely on a few of those younger players as well. Yes, it’s frustrating not to win the game. I felt that I was about to say the point, the draw was the least we deserved in terms of our overall play. And we have to go and have a difficult game away at Birmingham, but I’d much rather have that and still be in the FA Cup.”
After Friday’s game with Norwich, the Tigers will then have their cup replay at St Andrew’s closely followed by the trip to the Stadium of Light. But the Tigers boss says he’ll worry about team selections closer to the time.
“We’ll cross that bridge when we get to it, we’ve got a huge game against Norwich,” he said. “I’m not the type of manager who tries to plan ahead, I think if you do that, especially in the Championship, it can kick you in the backside for want of a better term, so we will just analyse Norwich, make sure we pick the right team for that and then move on to Birmingham and move on to Sunderland and then keep trying to work to win as many games as possible.”
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