Posh invade MK!

Friday, 13/05/2011

by Chris Harman, Shoot's Peterborough blogger

The time is almost upon us, Poshies.

Any play-off match is a big event, but our play-off match away to MK Dons this Sunday, a team with whom we’ve built up a healthy rivalry in recent years, is bigger than most.

Of course, Posh fans still consider Northampton and Cambridge our proper rivals, and rightly so, but with both of those clubs struggling in the lower leagues, the Dons are as good as it currently gets.

Make no mistake; we’re up for this one. It took us just three days to sell out our 4,100 ticket allocation for the clash at stadium:mk. We’ve been given an extra 900 due to the huge demand, and at time of writing, most of those have gone too.

On paper, our team looks more than capable of progressing to the final at Old Trafford. We certainly don’t lack the firepower – the prospect of defending against the likes of Craig Mackail-Smith, George Boyd and Lee Tomlin is enough to make any defender at League One level tremble with fear.

However, we do have our frailties. Dons boss Karl Robinson will surely have identified our left-back area as a potential weakness to exploit.

First-choice left-back Tom Kennedy is out for the rest of the season. Our other natural left-back Grant Basey is back in training following injury, but may not be ready to be thrown into such a crucial match.

Additionally, the versatile Charlie Lee, who’s been deputising in that position, limped off holding his hamstring during our final league match of the season. His injury isn’t as bad as first feared, but he faces a race against time to be fit for Sunday.

Darren Ferguson swiftly recalled Scott Griffiths from his promotion-winning loan at Chesterfield to help ease our left-back woes. We’ve since been informed that, as he was never registered with us this season, he’s not eligible to take part. Typical.

So, if Basey and Lee fail in their fitness bids we only really have one other option – to move left-winger Tommy Rowe back into defence.

Rowe regularly played at left-back under the management of Gary Johnson, but never looked totally comfortable there. Whoever ends up getting the nod, it’ll surely be an area to keep an eye on.

Our head-to-head record against the Dons this season suggests there’s very little to choose between the two sides – we won 2-1 at London Road and they won 1-0 at stadium:mk. One suspects this could go right to the wire.

With 5,000 Posh fans descending on Milton Keynes on Sunday, we’ll certainly be in fine voice. Let’s cheer the team on to a positive result, ready to finish the job off at London Road on Thursday night.

Up the Posh!

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