Cardiff City manager Malky Mackay says the players and coaching staff are not thinking about historic near-misses ahead of tomorrow night's Championship play-off first leg.
The Welsh club host West Ham United in the first bout of the semi-final and Mackay insists there will be no thoughts of the 2010 final defeat at the hands of Blackpool or last season's loss to Reading at this same stage.
"Last year losing Craig Bellamy against Reading didn't help and against Blackpool the year before they lost a striker who had got a lot of goals for them just 10 minutes in - Jay Bothroyd.
"And Charlie Adam had one of those days where he put the ball in the top corner from 30 yards.
"That's the kind of thing you need to go for you to win a final. But as far as we're concerned this is a group that has got to a Carling Cup final and taken a club like Liverpool all the way to penalties.
"That shows there's a strength in character here to enable us to handle a two-legged semi-final.""That's in the past, you have to take the individual games on their own merit," he said.
