Peterborough United chairman on what it will take to beat brilliant Birmingham City at Wembley

But Darragh MacAnthony believes his side can pull off a ‘David v Goliath’ standard shock and extend their perfect winning record at Wembley to five games.

MacAnthony has spoken about Sunday’s final in the last two episodes of his ‘Hard Truth’ podcast. In the latest edition he also delivered harsh words on player discipline and unprofessional temper tantrums after back-to-back home defeats in League One to Northampton Town and Birmingham.

Temper tantrums and a disgraceful performance

“We will need to play well above our levels this season to get a result,” MacAnthony admitted. “We have better levels than we have shown, but we will need to go deeper to places we haven’t visited before to beat such a strong Birmingham team. They are a Goliath at our level, but I love to see us taking on the biggest League One clubs. We’ve beaten them before, but this a team who have dominated our division as I predicted they would. I’m still backing them to complete back-to-back promotions.

"They are a great team and forget how much money they’ve spent. Their players could have looked at League One and decided they didn’t have ro run about so much, but instead they have been at it every week. Lots of big clubs have come down into League One and got lost in the weeds for a while, but they have been brilliant and relentless.

“We did okay at their place and we gave them a game at our place, but we will need to be even better on Sunday to have a chance as I hear they really want to win this cup for their owners.

"We will need to be magnificent. We will need a referee who plays it 50/50 down the line and we will need our fans to be with us. I want to be proud of my team at the end of the game. I don’t want my players to let their families down. I want us to give a proper reflection of who we are and what we are about.

"The players have to give their all, but they also have to be disciplined. They have to show belief. We’ve always been good at Wembley so I hope that continues and we win 4-3 with a 99th minute winner!

"Our manager deserves to win this cup, but we need to learn from the way Birmingham played and behaved against us the other night as well. They were a real example to our players. This game is also essentially a marker for next season when we want to be challenging for promotion. "After this game I want the players to show a desire to win the last five games and finish the in the top 10 in League One. I don’t want them to believe our season is over. We had started to set the tone for next season, but the Northampton performance last weekend sucked the air out of our tyres. I want to go into next season in a positive frame of mind after a bang, bang, bang finish to this one. The players need to know how important that is.

"Football is a short career. You want promotions and cup wins on your CV, but you have do a some of the work yourselves.”

Posh lost 3-2 away and 2-1 at home to Birmingham in League One matches this season. The Blues clinched promotion at London Road on Tuesday with six games to spare. They will be crowned champions without playing on Saturday if Wrexham fail to win at Wigan.