Peterborough United v Cardiff City Preview
Cardiff City travel to Peterborough tonight in the third game of the Championship season. Both sides picked up their first wins of the season over the weekend, with City winning 2-0 at Blackpool. Peterborough got their win in added time coming from a goal down to Derby County. Siriki Dembele getting the winning goal in the 100th minute of the match.
The match will be the first meeting of the sides since 2013, when two Grant McCann penalties give The Posh a 2-1 after Aron Gunnarsson had given the Bluebirds the lead. History is on the side of the home team with Cardiff's last with at Peterborough coming in a division four match in 1986. The overall record between the sides has Posh with 16 wins to Cardiff's six.
Kieffer Moore came off the bench at Blackpool and scored and will be pushing for a starting place. Will Vaulks and Marley Watkins are another two who could start this game. Isaac Vassell, Lee Tomlin and Isaak Davies will all miss the game though injury.
For Posh Siriki Dembele will be a contender to start after his dramatic late winner on Saturday. Jonson Clarke-Harris and Jack Marriott have been described as "nowhere near" fully fit. Manager Darren Ferguson will also be without Jack Taylor with a hamstring injury. Sammie Szmodics recently became a father and its unknown if he will be in the squad.
Cardiff Manager Mick McCarthy was happy with the performance in their last match saying,
"The fans enjoyed [the win at Blackpool] and we enjoyed them, they travelled in numbers and made a load of noise and to be fair, they saw a good performance.
“We should have been in front at half time and we maintained the performance, got a couple of goals and kept a clean sheet. I am really pleased with the performance.
“It is always a worry when you should be ahead at half time and you aren’t. But thankfully it didn’t come back to bite us.
“I thought we played well last week against a really good team, but we backed it up with a good performance today… it’s nice to get the first win.”
Peterborough Boss Darren Ferguson spoke about keeping the self belief of his squad after their first win,
"It was a very important win for us [over Derby] because the result should give us a massive shot of self belief.
“Football is very fickle. One week you’re the best thing since sliced bread and the next week you’ll get relegated and never win a game or score a goal.
“I have to manage that side of things and keep the players’ confidence up. The self-belief from this win should be massive. We needed to get something to get the season started, some points on the board, and we did.."
