The Peterborough Evening Telegraph
‘Good enough to play at this level’
Forward Sammie Szmodics believes Posh have started to prove they belong in the Championship.
It’s been a frustrating season for the player and his club and recent improvements have surely come too late to stop an immediate return to League One.
It’s very likely to happen on Saturday when even a shock win for Posh over high-flying visitors Nottingham Forest might not be enough.
But Szmodics, after a goalscoring performance against Blackburn Rovers on Good Friday, said: “It’s been a frustrating season. We have been in most games this season. We are good enough to be at this level we just needed to have believed it.
“It’s going to be tough to survive obviously, but it’s not over and we will keep fighting until the end.
“It’s annoying sometimes that we have to fall a goal behind before we show how good we are.”
Szmodics started the game against Blackburn as a right wing-back as Joe Ward sat out a one-game suspension.
He did well until moving further forward once Rovers had been reduced to 10 men by a first-half red card.
Szmodics also played 20 minutes as a wing-back at Barnsley on Easter Monday after Ward went off injured, but that was more of a struggle and he was soon sent back up front.
“The manager pulled me in the week (before the Blackburn game) and said he needed a favour from me,” Szmodics added. “I thought he meant I would be playing in midfield or right up front, but he said he wanted me to play wing-back.
“That’s not a position I’ve ever played and we were both laughing as he said it.
“It’s not usual to go from being a 10 to a wing-back. It was a foreign position for me, but I’d do anything for this club.
“And I enjoyed it. I had plenty of freedom going forward. Sometimes I was playing off Jonno (Clarke-Harris), but then it meant a 60-yard sprint back into position!”
Szmodics is expected to start Saturday’s game against Forest and it’s hoped Ward will also play after suffering a dead leg injury at Barnsley.
MIdfielder Jorge Grant and young defender Emmanuel Fernandez are unlikely to be involved after picking up injuries.
Posh boss Grant McCann said: “Joe Ward has been one of the most consistent players since I came back. He’s a big miss for us, but I asked Sammie to perform a role he wasn’t familiar with at the start and he was brilliant.
“We tried to overload them down the right when we were attacking and it worked well. He took his goal superbly. He deserved that.
“We moved Sammie to wing-back for a time at Barnsley, but it didn’t work so well so we changed it quickly.” Possible Posh team: Cornell
Knight, Edwards, Kent Ward, Fuchs, Taylor, Burrows. Szmodics Clarke-Harris, Marriott.