The Peterborough Evening Telegraph
Dale capable of causing an upset
Rochdale 1, Wigan 4. Don’t be fooled by the score says Steve Evans . . . Rochdale are nohwhere near as bad as that scoreline might suggest.
Posh boss Evans went to watch the game on Tuesday night and for an hour he thought Rochdale were more than a match for Wigan, who went top of the table as a result.
“Of course Wigan have some top players but in the first half you couldn’t tell which of the teams was goingfor promotion and which one was battling for their lives.
“Rochdale were very much in contention until Wigan’s second goal went in. That rocked them a bit and then two more goals followed in the space of eight minutes.
“Rochdale should not be taken lightly though and they are capable of causing an upset.
“This time last season they were playing to get into the play-offs with virtually the same team.
“They have some very good players. I liked the look of the boy Davies (Steve), who came on as an early sub, and up front Calvin Andrew and Ian Henderson are a threat. Henderson scores all their goals and the Wigan keeper pulled off two superb saves to deny him a goal.
“Rochdale are a big, strong physical side and very hardworking and we’ll certainly need to be up and at it.”
There was good news for Posh at AFC Wimbledon on Tuesday night as they beat play-off rivals Charlton Athletic 1-0.
“That was their game in hand and who’d have thought they’d lose to Wimbledon,” said Evans.
“It just goes to show anything can happen. There are going to be lots of ups and downs over the last few weeks of the season.”
Evans is likely to be without Marcus Maddison for Saturday’s game and will definitely be missing centre-back Steven Taylor, who is serving a onematch ban following his sending off at Plymouth.
Maddison failed a late fitness test for the Plymouth game after twisting his ankle in training the day before.
“The chances of Maddison making it are 50/50 but the good news is that the scan showed he’ll defintely be okay for Blackburn next Thursday. The picture certainly looks a lot better than it did on Saturday,” added Evans.
“We’ll certainly miss Steven at the back but we’ve got plenty of options.”
Evans took a look at the club’s 18-19 year-olds in a training match on Monday but insisted none of them would be included in Saturday’s squad.
“There’s some promising players there, certainly, but they’re not ready for this one,” he said.