Peterborough United manager excited to see how his side fare at Chelsea

Peterborough United manager Darren Ferguson is excited to see how his team fare when they take a big step up in standard to tackle Premiership giants Chelsea in a friendly on Saturday (July 17, 11am kick off).
Siriki Dembele in action for Posh at Stamford. Photo: Joe Dent/theposh.com.Siriki Dembele in action for Posh at Stamford. Photo: Joe Dent/theposh.com.
Siriki Dembele in action for Posh at Stamford. Photo: Joe Dent/theposh.com.

Posh overcame non-league Stamford AFC 4-0 at the Zeeco Stadium tonight (July 13) to make it 10 goals scored and none conceded in their opening two friendlies of the summer.

Joe Ward (2), Siriki Dembele (penalty) and Sammie Szmodics scored the Posh goals, but life is about to get much tougher as Posh travel to Chelsea’s Cobham training ground this weekend.

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It’s the Londoners first pre-season game of the summer and first-team squad members who didn’t take part in the Euros like Tammy Abraham and Hakil Ziyech are expected to be involved.

Ryan Broom in action for Posh at Stamford. Photo: Joe Dent/theposh.com.Ryan Broom in action for Posh at Stamford. Photo: Joe Dent/theposh.com.
Ryan Broom in action for Posh at Stamford. Photo: Joe Dent/theposh.com.

“It’s a game that has come at the right time for us,” Ferguson said. “It will be a good test of where we are at. It’s obviously a big step up in standard. It’s a game against high quality players. I understand they will be using first team players so we will need to have our defensive shape spot on for a start.

“It also gives us a chance to get away for a couple of days. We will travel down on Thursday night, train at Chelsea on Friday and then play the game Saturday morning.

“I was pleased with much of what we did at Stamford. Like most games at this stage of the summer, there was plenty of good and bad, but I was generally happy.

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“We were very good in the first-half. Our rotation and movement were very good. We passed the ball really quickly.

“We weren’t so good in the first half of the second-half. We were sloppy, they sat in and we let ourselves get frustrated. “We were better when we switched Idris Kanu and Joe Ward wide. Even in games like this there are problems to solve and we managed it eventually.

“I don’t mind us making mistakes in games like this though and at the end of the day we scored four goals and kept another clean sheet.”

Midfielder Jack Taylor emerged unscathed from his first 45 minutes of the summer. Forwards Jack Marriott and Jonson Clarke-Harris are not expected to return to action until the July 24 game at Barnet.

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The scheduled Posh friendly at Gillingham next Tuesday has been postponed because of a Covid outbreak in the Gills camp and Posh will instead play an in-house friendly match.

Posh under 23s won 3-0 in a friendly at Soham tonight.