Jerome doesn't intend to suffer his first FA Cup shock when Town take on Harrogate in third round tie

As far as he can remember, Town striker Cameron Jerome hasn’t been on the end of any shock defeats in the FA Cup during his lengthy career, and he wants to ensure that record doesn't change this afternoon.

The 35-year-old striker is expected to be part of the Hatters squad as they go up against League Two outfit Harrogate Town at Kenilworth Road in the third round, a side who are 45 places below them in the football pyramid.

After yesterday’s opening batch of matches saw Newcastle United, Burnley, Blackpool, Reading, Birmingham City, Blackburn Rovers and AFC Wimbledon all knocked out by lower ranked sides, Jerome is determined Luton don't follow suit.

On any poor memories in the competition from his stints with Cardiff, Birmingham, Stoke, Crystal Palace, Norwich City, Derby County and MK Dons, he said: “I haven’t actually to be honest with you.

"I’ve always had draws against opponents almost like a flip of a coin game, or generally done quite well if we were a bigger team, drawing an underdog, so we've got past that and got to the stages where if you did lose, you lose to somebody of similar ability or the same division, so it’s not as bad.

"You never want to be that team and 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 it 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.

"Okay 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.”

On the slip side, Jerome does have some plenty of good recollections from the FA Cup, good memories too, when as a 20-year-old, he scored for Cardiff in their 2-1 FA Cup defeat at Highbury, while also reaching the last 16 when at Birmingham City back in March 2011, netting in a 3-2 loss against Bolton Wanderers.

He continued: “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 too.

“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.”

Showing the right attitude is something that Jerome will be hammering home to the Luton players in the dressing room ahead of their clash against Harrogate today too, as he added: “I remember when I was at Stoke, we had Tony Pulis as the manager and that was his biggest message, 'don’t approach this game with the wrong mindset or wrong attitude as if you do, you’ll be out.'

"And that’s it, don’t be that upset, don’t be that banana skin, where everybody’s talking about you and you’re on the back pages for the wrong reasons.

"People want to be talking about the game for the right reasons, how professional it was, they did a good job and are through to the next round, stamped their authority on the game, showed their quality, those sorts of things, have people talking about it for the right reasons, not the wrong reasons.

"The squad is under no illusions that this is an easy game, I don’t think anyone will be approaching it in the wrong sort of mindset, I don’t think the manager allows that here.

"It’s certainly not crept in since I’ve been here, so I can’t see that approach.

"We’ll approach it in the right way and if we get beat, we’ll hold our hands up and say we got beat, but I’m sure the attitude will be spot on.

“These sorts of games, when you are playing against a team who is an underdog, you have to do things professionally and thoroughly.

"You have to approach it in the same mindset as you would any other game.

"It will be a big game for them, they will come with their tails up and try and cause an upset so we have to be professional, do our job and get into the next round, it is all about progressing and trying to go as far as we can in this competition.”