Forget about the top six for now says Peterborough United promotion hero

Poku will miss the next three months of the season after damaging his hamstring in last Wednesday’s confidence-sapping League One defeat at home to Burton Albion. Zakuani doesn’t believe the injury is fatal to the club’s chances of getting back into the promotion race, but he insists Posh must concentrate on staying out of trouble at the bottom end of the table for now.

The two-time Posh promotion hero says the most important games are now against those in and around 15th-placed Posh in the League One table, starting at local rivals Northampton Town on Monday evening (8pm kick off).

​Zakuani, who racked up 253 appearances in two spells at Posh before having a season at Cobblers, will be at the match on punditry duties for BBC Radio Cambridgeshire. The tough-tackling centre-back won two promotions with Posh.

"It’s been a rough few days with the Burton defeat and losing Kwame,” Zakuani said. “Posh had adopted a policy of just outscoring the opposition, but without Kwame that will be difficult to achieve. He’s scored most of the goals and created plenty as well.

"We can certainly forget about promotion for now. We have to accept we are not a top six side at the moment and our biggest matches are now against the teams around us in the table. They are the games we need to take points from so we can stay clear of the bottom four. When we’ve stabilised we can re-assess and see how close we are to the play-off places.

"I can’t see the manager changing formation for an important game away from home and I hope he gives Cian Hayes a chance in Kwame’s place. Cian is quick and direct and he can cause defenders problems. It’s good that Hector Kyprianou is back as we need his calmness and class in the middle of the pitch, especially in a derby game.

"Posh still have the forwards to cause any League One defence problems, but it would be great for the team if they could grind out a win and keep that first clean sheet of the season. The manager’s been quite vocal about just outscoring the opposition, but deep down he knows the value of clean sheets. When they get one people like us in the media will stop talking about which will also help.

“Emmanuel Fernandez has had a good season despite the goals conceded and he and Oscar Wallin are a decent enough partnership for League One. It’s interesting Jadel Katongo played has been playing as a right-back. That’s the one position that no-one has managed to nail down so it could be he gets his chance there rather than as a centre-back.

"Jadel has said he sees himself as a centre-back, but he’s from Manchester City who get players to play well in all sorts of positions. They are all intelligent footballers and Jadel knows the Posh system as he played well as a right-back last season.

"I hope Northampton stay up. I had a decent season there. Rob Page signed me after they’d won promotion back to League One and then he was replaced by Justin Edinburgh. We stayed up comfortably and they offered me a two-year deal, but withdrew it after they said I took too long to make my mind up. I was keen on moving back south though and Gillingham had come calling so I went there.”

Zakuani is currently coaching the DR Congo national side. Former Posh and Cobblers loan right-back Peter Kioso has come into their squad.