Posh welcome Swindon Town in the first round of the Carabao Cup on Tuesday evening (7.30pm).
Peterborough United welcome Sky Bet League Two side Swindon Town to the Weston Homes Stadium in the first round of the Carabao Cup on Tuesday evening (7.30pm) with Darren Ferguson’s men set to come up against a side who saw their opening league fixture postponed on Saturday due to a postponed pitch at Colchester United.
Posh opened their Sky Bet League One account with a 1-0 victory at the Select Car Leasing Stadium against Reading thanks to a goal from Ephron Mason-Clark. Posh’s record in the Carabao Cup in recent seasons has not been particularly successive with Stevenage knocking Posh out of the competition last season.
TEAM NEWS
Captain Ephron Mason-Clark won’t feature against the Robins after coming off with a hamstring injury at Reading, but the early indications are positive and the former Barnet man could return for the league fixture with Charlton Athletic at the weekend.
Emmanuel Fernandez is available again after illness ruled him out of the trip to Reading. Charlie O’Connell and Kai Corbett could feature in the squad after they were not part of the 18 on Saturday, while midfielder Ryan De Havilland is also expected to feature.
Swindon could field the XI that was due to take the field against Colchester rather than tinker with their starting line-up. Frazer Blake-Tracy is set to be part of the Robins side and could be part of a three-man defence.
ONE TO WATCH
Experienced front man Charlie Austin (pictured below) returned to the club where he made his name in December 2022 and scored nine goals in 20 appearances for Swindon last term. He is expected to lead the line against Posh with the 34-year-old still possessing a wonderful knack of finding space in the penalty box. He had a spell in Australia with Brisbane Roar but arguably his best spell in the game was at Queens Park Rangers.
FROM THE MANAGER
“It is very strange that you would come up against a team that didn’t play on the opening weekend, but the weather was pretty atrocious, and we actually spoke as a management team before our game that we felt one or two matches might get postponed. I don’t know what they will do in terms of their selection, but we have watched a lot of games they played during pre-season against decent opposition and they have been quite expansive in terms of the way they play. We certainly won’t be making wholesale changes to our line-up," Posh boss Darren Ferguson said.
PLAYED FOR BOTH
As previously mentioned, Frazer Blake-Tracy (pictured below) is one of the links between the two sides, but current left-back Joe Tomlinson enjoyed two loan spells with the Robins. Former Posh midfielder Michael Doughty is also behind the scenes at the County Ground, appointed as the clubs Chief Sustainability Officer.
Among the others to have played for both Posh and Swindon include;
Jimmy Quinn, Nicky Ajose, David Ball, Trevor Benjamin, Steven Benda, Neale Fenn, Claude Gnakpa, Louis Reed, Peter Grant, Bart Griemink, Dean Hooper, Lloyd Isgrove, Alex Pritchard and Nathan Thompson.
HEAD TO HEAD
Posh drew 2-2 with Swindon Town back in 2016 at the Weston Homes Stadium with Gwion Edwards (pictured below) and Marcus Maddison on target.
You can watch the highlights of that game here.
POSH+
Posh+ subscribers can listen to full-match commentary of the game via Chris Dowsett and Nilesh Patel. Non-subscribers can purchase an audio pass for £5, but it makes sense to buy an annual or monthly pass as it provides excellent value for money.
Full packages can be found here: https://www.theposh.com/video/packages
MAN IN THE MIDDLE
The match referee is Tom Nield