A look ahead to Saturday's Sky Bet League One clash against Birmingham City at
St. Andrew's @ Knighthead Park (3pm).
Peterborough United travel to promotion favourites Birmingham City in Sky Bet League One action on Saturday afternoon (3pm) with a sell-out crowd at St. Andrews @ Knighthead Park expected of around 30,000.
The Blues have spent big in an attempt to get back to the Sky Bet Championship at the first time of asking and have started the campaign strongly. Posh go into the game with the Blues on the back of a 2-2 draw at in-form Leyton Orient on Tuesday night with Kwame Poku and Malik Mothersille on target in the capital.
TEAM NEWS
Posh are without the services of attacking midfielder Chris Conn-Clarke, who underwent an operation on his collar-bone on Thursday.
Oscar Wallin has recovered from a hip problem while midfielder Ryan De Havilland played over an hour on his comeback from a knee injury for the Under 21s at Peterborough Sports on Tuesday evening. De Havilland is expected to play for the 21s at Barnsley next Tuesday.
Bradley Ihionvien remains a doubt with a calf injury while Rio Adebisi is side-lined with a knee injury that has kept him out of the season so far.
Netting three goals in his opening two league matches back in the Second City, Birmingham's Stansfield will be causing problems for the Posh backline on Saturday afternoon.
May was rested from the start at Rotherham due to a slight illness, but it is difficult to imagine last season's League One Golden Boot winner sitting on the bench once again.
Suspended for the trip to Rotherham, Krystian Bielik is likely to return and captain the team alongside Christoph Klarer, meaning that Ben Davies should drop to the bench.
Dion Sanderson is back in training following a foot injury but faces a hard time getting back into a defence that kept their first League One clean sheet last time out.
ONE TO WATCH
Jay Stansfield
Jay Stansfield was one of the external scholars that Fulham signed from Exeter City in August 2019. The forward possesses an excellent touch and can feature as a striker or the number ten position.
He marked his first appearance for Fulham with a goal in the season opener against Spurs U18s and a further four goals came against Norwich, Reading and Leicester. After amassing an impressive 23 goals in the first half of the 19/20 season, he earned his first team debut in the FA Cup third round with a 2-1 win over Aston Villa.
On 2 September 2022, Stansfield returned to his boyhood club, Exeter City on a season-long loan. Stansfield made his Exeter debut on 3 September as a 79th minute substitute in a 1–0 victory over MK Dons. He wore the no. 9 shirt, the first to do so since the death of his father, Adam Stansfield, from cancer in 2010.
He then spent a season on-loan with Blues before making the move permanent in the summer for a League One record believed to be in excess of £10m.
MANAGER QUOTES
"It will be a big crowd and a big atmosphere, but I want my players to go there and try and thrive in that environment. I want them to impart their personality on the game. Yes, Birmingham have a good squad and they will be expected to win promotion, but we have faced a lot of big clubs at this level in the past and done okay. We want to go there and win, but to do that, there is no doubt that we have to put in a strong performance," Darren Ferguson said.
TICKET NEWS
No tickets will be available on the day. Posh have sold almost all of their allocation of 2,200 tickets. A crowd of over 30,000 is expected. If that is achieved, it could go into the top six attendances of all time that Posh have played in front of.
POSH+
Overseas subscribers will still be able to buy match passes to watch the game, but due to the new Sky TV deal, there will be no match passes available in the UK.
KIT COLOURS
Posh will be in the black third kit for the game.
MATCH OFFICIALS
The referee is Thomas Kirk.