Cambridge boss Mark Bonner insists Peterborough United is not their biggest game in League One

Cambridge United manager Mark Bonner (Photo by Pete Norton/Getty Images).

Cambridge United boss Mark Bonner has tried to play down the significance of Saturday’s Cambridgeshire Derby.

When asked if Saturday's clash with Posh was the U's biggest single game since promotion back to League One, he told BBC Radio Cambridgeshire: “Not for us.”

Cambridge go into the match fighting for their lives and in good spirits having won two and drawn one of their last three matches to put themselves right back into the fight to stay up.

A first league victory over Posh since 1998 could take them level on points with Oxford in the final safe position of 20th.

Bonner was much more bullish ahead of the reverse fixture in October, taking aim at the lack of atmosphere at Posh home matches.

Cambridge boss Mark Bonner takes aim at lack of atmosphere at Peterborough Unite...

He added: “It’s a really important game because it’s worth the same number of points as the others

“Where we are in the context of our season I’m sure other people might say there is extra significance towards it – I understand that.

“That’s not really for us. We need to be really connected to the game emotionally and understand what it means to people, what it means to us and the level we’re going to need to get to be competitive and to try and win the game.

“We can’t be hijacked by it at all. We’ve got to be competitive, we’ve got to be good and we’ve got to follow the idea of the last few games because that’s been successful for us and it’s paid us back. That’s what it will need to be in the remaining six games.

"For us, the cliche of ‘cup finals’ since the Burton break, we had nine (games to play) and we’re three down with six to go and we’ve got to enjoy this chase.

“This game is a really important one and it has extra and individual significance when you step back and see the bigger story, I understand that but actually, in the context of a nine-game season for us and what we need to achieve, it’s probably no different to the other games.

“We’ve got to make sure we’re at our absolute best, knowing that the games we’ve got against the top teams are always a challenge for us.

“The pressure is on both teams to perform and get a result.”

The U’s are set to be boosted by the return of attacking midfielder George Thomas, who joined in January and played 22 minutes off the bench on his debut before succumbing to injury.

Regular left-back George Williams is set to be sidelined with a knee injury bur former Posh man Ryan Bennett has been a regular in the side since his signing on a free in January.