It’s time to end a horrible hoodoo

Posh are determined to put an end to a horrible hoodoo on Saturday.

Darren Ferguson’s men will attempt to beat a promotion rival for just the second time in 10 attempts when second-placed Plymouth Argyle visit the Weston Homes Stadium (3pm).

With that record, it’s perhaps a surprise to find Ferguson

licking his lips at the prospect of tackling the Pilgrims in front of a packed away end.

“It’s great game for us,” Ferguson insisted. “It couldn’t be a better game in my opinion.

"We need to play and start beating the teams at the top to give us confidence and to give our fans belief.

"Our record against the best teams keeps getting mentioned because it’s important and because it is factual. You can’t get anywhere if you can’t beat the other top sides.

“Those games take care of themselves. It will be a great crowd. They will fill their end.

"They’ve grown steadily as a club. They won promotion from League Two and only missed out on the League One play-offs on the final day of last season.

"They have been flying this season and they have the boost of reaching a Wembley final earlier this week.

"Plymouth are obviously a very good side and they are extremely well managed and coached. I’ve heard a lot of good things about their coach (Steve Schumacher).

“But it’s time we break our hoodoo of not beating teams above us and if we can do that on Saturday it would give us a real big boost for the rest of the season.

"There’s no doubt we can do it. We will need a 90-minute performance for sure. We showed for 70 minutes against Portsmouth how good we can be and the first 45 minutes at Morecambe last week were very good.

"But if we drop off at any time this Saturday we will get punished.”

Plymouth have been in League One’s top three virtually all season.

They have lost just four of their 32 third tier games and they reached the final of the Papa John’s Trophy on Tuesday with a penalty shootout win over Cheltenham.

Plymouth have an eightpoint lead over third-placed Ipswich.