Peterborough United expect a physical contest against much-improved Shrewsbury Town

Ferghuson has been impressed with Shrewsbury’s improvement since Steve Cotterill became manager at the beginning of December.

‘The Shrews’ were next-to-bottom of League One at the time with just one win to their name, but they’ve lost just one of eight matches under Cotterill and beaten three of the current top four Lincoln, Hull and Doncaster. They will start tomorrow’s match in 17th place, albeit just two points clear of the relegation zone.

Cotterill is currently recovering from a bad experience with Covid which included some time in intensive care.

Ferguson said: “First of all I’d like to wish Steve well. I hope he recovers completely from his time in hospital.

“He’s been an outstanding appointment by Shrewsbury and I suspected he would be. He’s very experienced at League One level and above, and his teams are always very well organised and competitive.

“They are a very physical team who play with a lot of energy so we will have to match that first and foremost. We are under no illusions how tough the game will be.

“They have had a settled side, although they have signed a lad from Manchester City this week (Nathanael Ogbeta) and they play in a similar way to us and similar to what we faced against Bristol Rovers in the week.

“We looked like exposing Rovers, but we didn’t always pass the ball well enough. If we can improve on that we can get the wing-backs higher and that will help us cause them problems.”

Posh are expected to recall Joe Ward to play as a right wingback ahead of Idris Kanu. Harrison Burrows could also play instead of Dan utler as the left wing-back.

Teenage centre-back Ronnie Edwards is expected to play an hour for the Posh youth team tomorrow before returning to the first-team squad for the Papa John’s Trophy quarter-final at Tranmere next Tuesday (February 2, 7pm).