FA Cup Preview: Birmingham City v Swansea City

Birmingham City will be hoping history can repeat itself when they host Swansea City in the FA Cup fourth round on Saturday.

Lee Clark’s men dumped their Premier League opponents out of the third round of the League Cup earlier this season, ending Swansea’s defence of the title.

Dan Burn, Matt Green and Tom Adeyemi fired Birmingham into a 3-0 lead on that occasion, before Wilfried Bony netted a last-minute consolation for the visitors.

But Swansea recorded one of the more memorable cup results in their history to reach this stage of the FA Cup, picking up a first-ever win at Old Trafford to send Manchester United crashing out of the competition in a 2-1 triumph.

However, the Liberty Stadium outfit’s league form has taken a drastic turn for the worse in recent weeks and the club have now gone eight top-flight matches without a victory.

The poor run of results has led to reports of in-fighting in the squad and speculation that Michael Laudrup could leave the club at the end of the season, so the Dane will be targeting a morale-boosting win at St Andrew’s on Saturday.

Birmingham’s third-round experience was a drawn out affair, having to wait for a weather-delayed second-round clash between Crawley Town and Bristol Rovers to be completed before defeating the latter 3-0 on a Tuesday usually set aside for replays.

The Midlands outfit had been on a 10-match unbeaten run in the Championship until recently, but have lost their last two on the bounce, including a 2-0 home defeat to Yeovil Town.

Swansea are currently in the midst of a midfield injury crisis, with Leon Britton their only fully fit central midfielder, but could welcome Jonathan de Guzman, Nathan Dyer and Pablo Hernandez back to the fold this weekend.

Birmingham will be without on-loan Kyle Bartley, who is ineligible to face his parent club, while new loan signing Albert Rusnak could be in line for a debut.

Adeyemi and Peter Lovenkrands will also be available for selection after returning to fitness.