PREVIEW: Trip to high-fliers is the perfect game for Peterborough United
Peterborough United manager Grant McCann believes a trip to high-flying Scunthorpe United today (January 2) is the '˜perfect' fixture for his team
Posh dropped four points from two disappointing home draws against Gillingham (December 26) and Coventry (December 31) leading up to a trip to a side who went unbeaten on their own turf for the whole of 2016.
But McCann, a former Scunthorpe playing star, believes the need for the home side to play positively against Posh could work against them.
Scunthorpe dropped out of the top two yesterday after losing to a 94th-minute goal at fellow promotion candidates Bolton.
New signings Junior Morias and Martin Samuelsen are expected to be in the Posh squad. There’s also a chance a new centre back could arrive in time to join the action at Glanford Park.
It’s a second spell on loan for Samuelsen who made his original Posh debut as a substitute in a 4-0 League One win at Scunthorpe last season.
McCann said: “This is the perfect game for us in many ways. We need to bounce back after two disappointing home draws, but playing Scunthorpe away from home will be a totally different game.
“They will try and come forward and hopefully that will play into our hands, but for any gameplan to work we will need everyone at their best against a very good side.
“Scunthorpe have been at the top of the league for most of the season. They’ve had some difficult games lately and they lost late on at Bolton yesterday so they will also be looking for a reaction.
“They are a strong team with good experience throughout the side, but we will go there and give it a real go.
“That would be the case regardless of who we are playing and we go there with confidence. We were one of the last teams to win at Scunthorpe so we know it can be done.
“Hopefully the two or three new players we hope to have in the squad at Scunthorpe will add good quality to our game. We need to have more good days than bad ones in the second half of the season.”
Posh travel to Scunthorpe in decent form. They finished 2016 on an unbeaten run of six games, their longest unbeaten run of the year.
Marcus Maddison, who created a late equaliser for Michael Bostwick in yesterday’s 1-1 draw at home to Coventry after coming on as a substitute, is expected to start.
The loan spells of George Moncur and Nathan Oduwa have come to an end. The players have now returned to Barnsley and Spurs respectively.