Cardiff have a man on the inside who will be warning them of the perils that could await at Gillingham this weekend.

The Premier League side make the trip to Priestfield on Saturday for the third round of the FA Cup.

In the dugout for the Bluebirds will be Gills’ former manager Ronnie Jepson, now first-team coach at the Welsh club.

Jepson knows all about the Gills – having managed the club between November 2005 and September 2007 after assisting under Stan Ternent and Neale Cooper – and he will make sure the visiting players do, too.

Cardiff have been on a tough run of fixtures themselves, playing Spurs on New Year’s Day, and Jepson said: “If we need to make a few changes we will do but we won’t be making changes thinking it’s going to be an easy game. It will be purely based on lads needing a little breather.

“I have made people know here that at Priestfield there are no easy games. It is a difficult place to go, the fans get behind the team, they are good and it will be no gimmee. We know we are in for a difficult game.

“It goes for any club down there, they are fighting and want to get into the next round. They want to get money for the club and rightly so.”

Premier League survival is Cardiff’s main aim this season having won promotion last term, finishing second behind Wolves.

Asked how they’ll approach the competition, Jepson said: “The FA Cup is great but whether it has that X factor anymore I’m not so sure. It certainly has for clubs down there because they want the big boys.

“For us it is big, but some of the big boys now field teams where you have a great chance against them until the later rounds, the quarters and semis, that’s when they start taking it seriously. But we will be taking it seriously from the word go.

Jepson joined the club as first team coach under Neil Warnock and the management team have done a great job, steering Cardiff from second bottom in the Championship to the Premier League.

He said: “We have done really well here, perhaps quicker than we thought. We are playing catch-up now we are in the big league.

“It’s going to be difficult but when you have the opportunity to play in the Premier League you grasp it.

“We had a great season last year against all the odds, nobody fancied us. We are odds-on favourites to go down this year but we will have a go and see where it takes us.

“It is great playing against these clubs (like Tottenham) but we were playing Manchester United the other week and one of their players cost more than our whole team.

“We have a really honest group, they work hard and they deserve the reward of getting into the Premier League. It’s a prerequisite of Neil Warnock’s teams, I have played for him and I know what he expects.”