Town's French ace always liked Arsenal

Town's French forward has some happy memories of Manchester United when growing up in Toulouse.

He admits Cantona was the player he admired whenever there was talk about United. However, his allegiance was with their rivals Arsenal – because of their heavy French influence under Arsene Wenger.

Akpa Akpro said: "Whenever I heard talk of Eric Cantona, I thought he was a king.

"I knew all about Cantona – he was very good here, as was Fabien Barthez, but my interest was more in Arsenal because of all the French players there.

"I used to prefer Arsenal because of all the French players there.

"So I didn't have Cantona as a favourite – for me it was more about Thierry Henry because I liked him a lot.

"I used to like Manchester United but I didn't follow English football that much, although I'd watch United in the Champions League though."

Akpa Akpro admits the arrival of United for Monday's FA Cup fifth round tie is as big as it gets for Shrewsbury.

He said: "It's the biggest game for a long time for this club, so it's good to be part of it and it's a chance to make history.

"From the way we've been playing, we'll go into this game with more confidence."

United were known under Sir Alex Ferguson for never giving up and scoring important late goals.

And Akpa Akpro believes Town have the ability and can call on fairly recent history to do the same.

He said: "Confidence is a big thing – last season when we didn't play well we'd often still win and we were confident because we were top of the league.

"For example last season we were 1-0 down at Carlisle and scored twice in the last minute to win, and this year we scored a last-minute goal to win at Burton, so our luck has changed."

The big Frenchman is also convinced his recent partnership with Andy Mangan can flourish against the Premier League giants.

He said: "We have a good understanding of each other which bodes well for the future.

"I think I can develop a partnership with anyone and it's worked quite well with 'Mangy' so I'm happy.

"It's about understanding and I know his runs and exactly where he'll go."