Peterborough United players ordered to ignore looming Cambridge United derby and concentrate on beating Accrington Stanley
Peterborough United manager Grant McCann has ordered his players to put Saturday’s eagerly-anticipated derby against Cambridge United to the back of their minds.
Posh host Cambridge in a Football League match at the Weston Homes Stadium this weekend for the first time in 21 years.
The game is heading for a sellout 13,500 crowd but Posh have a home game against Accrington Stanley on Tuesday (7.45pm) to take care of first.
"We must forget about Cambridge,” McCann said. “The game tomorrow is far more important right now because it’s the next one.
"We’ve been going from game to game all season and that’s not changing now. It’s important we back up Saturday’s excellent win at Oxford with a home win.
"Our planning has totally been on tomorrow’s game. We are working out how to cause them problems while containing their threats as we do for every opponent.
"Accrington can’t be taken lightly because they have good players who can hurt us if we are not right defensively and a manager who has done an incredible job considering their budget must be relatively small. Their recruitment of non-league gems is usually spot on and it wouldn’t be a surprise to me to see them challenging for promotion from League One one season, maybe even this season.
"They’ve been in indifferent form with three wins and three defeats in their last six matches, but they will be another tough test for us.”
Accrington have lost their last three League One games and conceded three goals in each of them. They were 2-0 up at home to promotion challengers Bolton Wanderers on Saturday, but lost 3-2.
Posh are currently fourth and can’t get any higher regardless of the results from a full midweek programme. A win tomorrow would get them within two points of third-placed Sheffield Wednesday who don’t play until Wednesday, against Bristol Rovers at Hillsborough.
Other key League One games on Tuesday are: Barnsley v Lincoln, Bolton v Burton, Derby v Exeter, Plymouth v Shrewsbury, Portsmouth v Oxford, Port Vale v Ipswich and Wycombe v Cambridge.