The Peterborough Evening Telegraph
Chelsea up next for Posh:
New Posh signing Jack Marriott will be back in action soon.
Posh saved their pre-season schedule by hastily arranging a prestigious friendly at Premier League Chelsea on Saturday.
Posh preparations for their eagerly-awaited return to the Championship were upset as League One Gillingham pulled out of a scheduled friendly next Tuesday becaue of a Covid outbreak in the camp.
But Chelsea came to the rescue by offering to host Posh at their plush Cobham training ground this weekend.
Posh have turned the trip into a mini break.
They were due to travel to London today (Thursday) to start preparations for a game against a Chelsea side that will include first-team squad members who weren’t involved in the Euros.
Posh boss Darren Ferguson said: “It’s a game that has come at the right time for us.
“It will be a good test of where we are at. It’s obviously a big step up in standard. It’s a game against high quality players. I understand they will be using first team players so we will need to have our defensive shape spot on for a start.
“It also gives us a chance to get away for a couple of days. We will travel down on Thursday night, train at Chelsea on Friday and then play the game Saturday morning.”
Posh have opened their summer programme with 12 goals scored and none conceded in two matches.
Bedford Town were despatched
8-0 last Saturday before Stamford AFC were beaten 4-0 at the Zeeco Stadium on Tuesday.
“Like all games at this stage of the summer there were good and bad things,” Ferguson said. “I am pleased with a lot of what we have done so far, but there are also obvious things for us to work on.
“We have looked fit, we are scoring goals and we have kept two clean sheets.
“Just now it’s about putting what we’ve worked on into practice and by and large we have done that.
“It got a bit tasty at times at Bedford, but that at least encouraged us to move the ball much more quickly.
“I was pleased with much of what we did at Stamford.
“We were very good in the first-half. Our rotation and movement were very good. We passed the ball really well at a good tempo.
“We weren’t so good in the first half of the second-half. We were sloppy, they sat in and we let ourselves get frustrated. We were better when we switched Idris Kanu and Joe Ward wide. Even in games like this there are problems to solve and we managed it eventually.
“I don’t mind us making mistakes in games like this though.”
Posh were without strikers Jonson Clarke-Harris and Jack Marriott for both matches. They are also expected to miss the Chelsea match before returning for the game at Barnet on July 24.
Star midfielder Jack Taylor made his comeback from a hamstring injury at Stamford and played 45 minutes without alarm.
“Jack did well,” Ferguson added. “He’s worked so hard to get back so I was really pleased for him. He looked fit and in good form.”
Jack Taylor returned to the Posh side at Stamford.
Chelsea are expected to use first-team squad members.