‘A bad week, but don’t rule us out’

Only a fool would rule Peterborough United out of the play-off race according to manager Steve Evans.

It’s not been a great week so far for Posh as they’ve slipped three places and three points off the top six ahead of two tough away games against second-placed Blackburn (tonight, Thursday) and thirdplaced Shrewsbury (Tuesday, April 24).

But Evans insists he and his players will use being written off as motivation

“We have our backs to the wall for sure,” Evans admitted. “It’s not been a great week for us, but with four games to go we are still in the fight and we are determined to prove everyone wrong.

“You’d be a fool to write anyone out of the play-off race as teams are swapping places every week.

“We now have ground to make up, but we are more than capable of doing it. Strange results happen at this time of the year as pressure does funny things to people.

“We have a management team who has been there and done it though and that experience will come in useful.

“When I was at Rotherham we came from nowhere to win our final six games and get into the automatic promotion places on the final day.

“When the going gets tough you have to get back into the trenches and fight for everything and that’s what we will be doing for the rest of the season, starting tonight.

“Blackburn were a bit of a mess when they came down, but manager Tony Mowbray knows what he’s doing.

“He had a good squad to start with, but he added it to very cleverly in January.

“They have a lot of quality attacking players, but we have League One’s top scorer and plenty of other talent to back him up.”

Evans is hoping king of the assists Marcus Maddison recovers from a sprained ankle to play tonight . He’s missed the last two matches, both of which have been lost by Posh.

Centre-back Ryan Tafazolli will be absent again, but Steven Taylor is available after serving a one-match suspension and is likely to replace teenager Lewis Freestone in the starting line-up with Andrew Hughes reverting to leftback. Defensive midfielder Anthony Grant can expect a recall.

Other key games this weekend: Northampton v Plymouth, Portsmouth v Charlton, Scunthorpe v Walsall.

Marcus Maddison is battling to be fit for the Posh trip to Blackburn.