THE over-arching might of today’s Premier League dictates that FA Cup third round day has slipped from seasonal highlight to afterthought in the football public’s consciousness.

Cherries’ trip to Millwall is a case in point. A match that would once have been hungrily anticipated for its potential to be a tinderbox cup tie, now apologetically creeps up on us following the chock-a-block festive schedule.

Top-flight football is, of course, a relatively fresh concept at Vitality Stadium. It is understandable, then, that the recent clashes with Chelsea, Swansea and Arsenal, packed into eight hectic days, swallowed up any thoughts of a forthcoming meeting with an inconsistent, unheralded League One team.

Wigan Athletic were probably similarly underwhelmed when they hosted Cherries at the same stage of the competition four years ago.

Actually, there’s no ‘probably’ about it. Roberto Martinez made nine changes to the Latics team thumped by Manchester United four days earlier for the visit of Eddie Howe’s underdogs in January 2013.

And it needed Jordi Gomez’s equaliser to earn Martinez’s side a second crack at their then third-tier visitors.

Mauro Boselli’s goal in the subsequent Dean Court replay simultaneously sent the Premier League side into round four and handed Howe the first defeat of his second coming as Cherries boss – at the 19th time of asking.

Four months later Wigan beat Manchester City at Wembley to win the FA Cup.

That should serve as a salutary tale for Cherries when they embark on their cup campaign in south London tomorrow.

The club has reinvented itself since those two encounters with Wigan.

A member of the elite, with victories over Chelsea, Manchester United, Everton and Liverpool to their name in the past 13 months, Cherries are operating at the forefront of the English game.

It is only right, then, that they consider winning the country’s premier knockout trophy as a realistic objective.

Going all out in pursuit of silverware might be viewed by some judges as a chancy act.

Those same judges would rush to point out that precisely three days after shocking City at the national stadium, Wigan were relegated into the Championship.

It is far too simplistic, however, to attribute the Latics’ league woes of that time to their contrastingly heady cup exploits.

Wigan, under Martinez, were a defensive accident waiting to happen. That deficiency can be masked in sudden death football, not during a 38-game slog.

There is no reason why cup success and robust league form must be mutually exclusive phenomena.

Nevertheless, Howe might take some persuading of that fact – something that will be borne out if, as expected, he makes wholesale changes to his starting line-up at The Den.

Understandably, Cherries’ boss is loath to do anything that might put his side’s precious Premier League status on the line.

He could also reflect on the demise of Alan Pardew and wonder about the enduring value of a cup run.

Pardew was sacked by Crystal Palace last month after his team won only six of 36 Premier League fixtures under him in the calendar year.

What the bare statistics don’t reveal is that Palace unquestionably allowed their eye to drift away from league matters as they swept past Southampton, Stoke, Tottenham and Watford on the way to last year’s FA Cup final.

That all four bosses of the 2016 semi-finalists are no longer in their posts will provide further food for Howe’s thoughts.

But the manager recently spoke of a desire for his club to emulate Stoke and Swansea, two unfashionable teams that have established themselves as Premier League mainstays – albeit Swansea have latterly lost their way.

Stoke’s current top-flight stay was three years old when they reached the 2011 FA Cup final, while finishing safely in 13th spot with 46 points.

Swansea accrued the same points total in 2013 – two years after winning promotion out of the Championship – while concurrently lifting the League Cup.

These are relevant precedents for Cherries to consider as they prepare to tackle a Millwall team sure to exploit any frailty in their lofty opponents’ mindset.

Whoever Howe sends into battle at the home of the 2004 finalists has an opportunity to set the club on course for yet another epochal achievement.

Going all the way in the Cup remains an enormous task: since 1995 only Wigan and Portsmouth have cracked a stranglehold on the trophy shared by Chelsea, Arsenal, Liverpool, Manchester United and Manchester City.

But you have to be in it to win it. And Cherries should make it their business to stay in it for as long as possible.

They are, after all, serious players on the domestic football scene these days.