BOSS Eddie Howe insisted Cherries would always remember the past when it came to the emotive subject of scrapping FA Cup replays.

The proposal has continued to spark fierce debate with some managers in the top-two tiers keen to see them ditched to help ease fixture congestion.

But clubs lower down the pyramid fear it could have an adverse effect on their finances and may even put some out of business.

Howe has seen both sides of the coin during his nine years in management, having plied his trade in all four divisions of the English game.

Quarter-final replays were scrapped in 2016 by the Football Association, which abolished them at the semi-final stage in 1999.

However, despite calls to do away with replays between the third and fifth rounds, the FA has no immediate plans for a further revamp or to move the competition to midweek.

“I think it very much depends on where your club is now,” Howe told the Daily Echo.

“If anyone had said to me five or six years ago we should scrap FA Cup replays, we would have been up in arms.

“That one game may well have earned the club the funds to sign a player or even saved it from extinction.

“We used to dream of FA Cup runs and getting a big team, for the finances more than anything.

“You can’t now suddenly have a short memory and turn round and say ‘well, actually, let’s scrap replays because we are in the Premier League’.

“That is the big thing for the FA and the difficulty for them because you will have half of the 92 clubs with one opinion and the other half with another.

“For us, I think it is important we don’t forget where we have come from and forget what it was like when we were in a different position.”

Steve Cook’s dramatic late leveller earned Cherries a second crack at the Latics after they had surrendered a 2-0 lead in the first game at Vitality Stadium earlier this month.

And although the rematch is sandwiched between Premier League clashes against Arsenal and West Ham, Howe acknowledges League One table-toppers Wigan could also have done without a replay.

“It may be unique for both sides,” added the Cherries boss. “Wigan are going for promotion and we have our own battles in the Premier League. Being honest, I think neither side would have wanted a replay from the outset.

“It will be a case of trying to make the right decisions in terms of who we feel can go again, who we feel may need a rest and giving an opportunity to players.

“We need to try to find the right balance to make sure we are strong enough to go through because that is ultimately the aim.

“To do that, we have to start better than we did in the first game. We gave ourselves a tough challenge to come back from but the lads did very well to stay in the competition.