Ward-Prowse wants Saints to match '76 Cup heroes

The England Under-21s midfielder helped the Saints into the Fourth Round Proper with their replay win at Ipswich Town at the previous stage.

Having successfully seen off a potential upset at Portman Road, Ward-Prowse is now targeting victory over Crystal Palace at a sold-out St. Mary’s.

And with the Fifth Round Proper firmly in his sights, the 20-year-old is dreaming of replicating Southampton’s greatest Cup moment when they beat Manchester United in 1976 and bringing European football to the south coast.

"It’s a big competition for us and the club’s ambition is to reach European football and one of the ways we can do that is via The FA Cup," he told TheFA.com.

"It would be great to replicate the great triumph the club had against Manchester United all those years ago in The Final and get to Wembley to lift the trophy.

"The gaffer will be wanting to play a really strong side to try and win the game, but not matter who we put out, I’m sure we’ll have the quality, determination and motivation to win the game."

After suffering a surprise defeat in the League Cup to Sheffield United earlier this season, Ward-Prowse and his team-mates are familiar with the feeling of losing to a lower-league opponent.

Ward-Prowse met local school children in Southampton this week

And he admits that added to their motivation when they faced a tricky-looking Third Round replay against Championship high-fliers Ipswich last week.

"At Ipswich, we did well to come through a game which could have been a real banana skin and you only have to look at the League Cup game at Sheffield United and what happened there," he explained.

"It showed how far we’ve come as a team that we went there and got a result without playing to our best, that’s the main thing in a Cup competition."

Palace will still be smarting from their recent defeat against the Saints in the Premier League, when Ward-Prowse helped Ronald Koeman’s side collect a 3-1 win at Selhurst Park on Boxing Day.

But with the Eagles now under the charge of new boss Alan Pardew, a former Southampton manager to boot, he knows this tie will pose a new challenge.

"It will be a different game," he added. 

"When a new manager comes in, everyone’s on top of their game and wants to impress him and that will still be the case now.

"They got a good result last weekend at Burnley, so they will be wanting to follow that up with a good Cup run.

"On the other hand, we’re wanting to win every game of football and we’re on a good run at the moment so we want to win the game as well."

Ward-Prowse was speaking at the first Together For England roadshow at St. Mary’s Primary School on Thursday.