FA Cup: Birmingham will be sick of the Cherries

The Emirates FA Cup Third round draw did not do a lot for Birmingham City fans. While they have a home draw which AFCB don't seem able to get these days, they will be a bit more wary of having picked the Cherries out of the hat. A 0-8 pummelling in the Championship last season hastily saw Gary Rowett move into the manager's position at the club and since then he has done a great job in pulling the midlands side up to eighth in the Championship table.

Birmingham might just be hoping they do better than last time.

Now Rowett will have to see how far his side has come when they come up against Eddie Howe's team who are keen to have a good cup run to ease the pressure on their Premier League battles. While AFCB have given Birmingham some heavy defeats in recent years, Birmingham City will be keen to get a reverse just to wipe away the memories of those games.

Clayton Donaldson is their top scorer with five in the league, but while Paul Caddis, Jon-Miquel Toral and Stephen Gleeson have also been netting a few goals, last summer's winger target Demarai Gray has only scored once this season. The team is also on a bad run with no win in three and five defeats in their last seven. Birmingham have not won at home since a 2-1win over QPR in mid-October when they had gone second in the division.

Since Darren Randolph left the Blues for West Ham in the summer, the goal keeping duties have been taken over by Tomas Kruszczack.