What Peterborough United could do if one of their deadly strikers became unavailable

No replacement for Sammie Szmodics has arrived and the first-team support for deadly duo Jonson Clarke-Harris and Jack Marriott remains a pair of 19 year-olds in Ricky-Jade Jones and Joe Taylor.

It’s far from ideal of course. I don’t see Jones or Taylor currently scoring the goals Posh would need to maintain a League One promotion push should either of the big two succumb to injury.

I wouldn’t rule out either of them making it in the future. They have youth and, more importantly, pace on their side. The best defenders can be worried by speed and if Grant McCann and his coaching staff can improve them technically, get them to run with their heads up and instil the importance of clever, well-time movement (watching Marriott in action would help this point) Posh may have a couple of fine players on their hands.

Craig Mackail-Smith was a rapid headless chicken with a habit of running offside when he joined Posh and he was 22. The coaching of Darren Ferguson and Kevin Russell soon turned him into a lethal lower division striker and ultimately a Premier Division player.

And if the Posh nightmare occurs and Marriott or Clarke-Harris did become unavailable for any length of time they could cope by changing their formation to 4-3-3, which McCann started the League One season with, albeit without two players who would now been seen as crucial to the system working.

It seems inevitable after the poor EFL Cup performance at Stevanage on Tuesday Posh will revert to the starting line-up that dismantled Lincoln City last weekend, but if Clarke-Harris or Marriott became indisposed they could still field this decent starting XI...