Wolves midfielder Surman has Millennium Stadium memories

Jan 3 2010 by Andy Walker, Sunday Mercury

“When you’re a pro, you think that you could miss out on a high point of your career if you haven’t reached Wembley, been to a final or even lifted a cup.

Surman also believes that, on the evidence of Southampton’s achievements almost seven years ago, Wolves can use a decent FA Cup run as a platform to Premier League success.

“Winning games in any competition breeds confidence, so going on a good run is always likely to give a club a boost,” he added.

“I think the success in the FA Cup helped Southampton in the league that season.”

As Wolves prepare to begin their quest to reach Wembley in May, the FA Cup will come as a welcome break from the strains of a Premier League survival fight.

However, Mick McCarthy’s men won’t know too much about today’s League One opponents at Prenton Park, as the last time the two clubs met was almost nine years ago, February 2001..

Tranmere, managed by club physiotherapist Les Parry, are currently battling against the drop from the third tier after suffering a terrible start to the season.

However considering that they have managed to secure three wins from their last five fixtures, Surman knows that Rovers certainly won’t be a straightforward route into the fourth round.

“Of course, with any team you play in the FA Cup that are in a lower division than you then they raise their game and can be a potential banana skin,” added the level-headed former England Under-21 international.

“You just have to look at the history of the competition to see that.

‘‘I know that we’ll approach the game as we would any other. We want to win and we’ll be showing Tranmere massive respect.

‘‘We know that if we’re not at our best then it will be a potential upset.

“I don’t know too much about them other than that they’ve been struggling in League One but we would have done plenty of homework by the time kick-off comes around.”

Just a couple of weeks after the fall-out caused when Mick McCarthy fielded a much changed team at Manchester United it is likely that the Wolves boss will again ring the changes this evening.

The Wolves boss will want to keep his squad fresh for the Premier League survival battle and to rotate things for the trip to the north west makes good sense.

After all, the Premier League elite have all been known to field less than full strength teams themselves for such ties in recent seasons.

And Surman admits that he understands why certain clubs “spread the load” by making changes for the FA Cup.

“I think sometimes when you look at the top four, they’ve got such strong squads that they can play their second string and still expect to get to the final,” he said.

“With a lot of games in the Champions League and League then you can see why clubs like that play their second string. They can afford to do it to help spread the load across the squad.”