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Whole new ball game for Rovers at Posh
PETERBOUGH United may be propping up the Championship table, but their form of late has been more of a promotion-chasing side more than one battling against relegation.
The Posh recorded their first back-to-back Championship wins of the season with a 1-0 victory at Watford at the weekend to make it three wins in their last five games - during which time they have only conceded three goals.
United's resurgence has coincided with manager Jim Gannon - the third man to be in charge at the club this season - recently telling his charges that the pressure was off because they had lost their battle against relegation.
They would still look to have it all to do being eight points adrift of fourth bottom Sheffield Wednesday, but a continuation of recent form would give them a fighting chance of survival in the second tier of English football following successive promotions.
"They looked to be down and out a few weeks ago and I don't know whether their manager was simply being realistic or whether he was using clever psychology in order to take the pressure off his players," said Rovers star Mark Wilson.
"If you think that you are as good as down you can play freely because you have nothing to lose and that is possibly what has happened.
"If that is the case then it will be interesting to see what happens in forthcoming games now that have put a few wins together.
"Tonight's game is certainly looking to be a lot more difficult than looked to be the case a few weeks ago.
"To be fair their home record isn't that bad and they have scored quite a few goals at London Road and they've got some decent players in their squad.
"They caused us a few problems going forward when we played them at home earlier in the season but maybe they lacked a bit of organisation and discipline which is vital at this level.
"Duncan Ferguson was in charge that day and I must say that I was surprised to see him part company bearing in mind that he steered them to successive promotions, but you never know what is going on upstairs."
He added: "From what I hear the Peterborough pitch isn't in a great condition, which probably won't do us any favours given the way that we like to play.
"But we have shown when playing on poor pitches - notably Brentford in the FA Cup - that we can still grind out results.
"Good teams adapt to the conditions and that's what we've done. We've are good enough to adapt our style of game to compete on any surface.
"We'll be looking to try and play our normal game but if that doesn't work we'll drop back on other things such as organisation and discipline.
"Having stretched our unbeaten record to four games on Saturday, we won't lack confidence."
With both Martin Woods, in particular, and Brian Stock, missing in recent weeks Wilson has enjoyed his longest unbroken spell in the team and has produced a series of solid displays.
Woods has come off the bench in the last two games and looks ready to start his first game of the year, but Wilson hopes that he has done enough to retain his place.
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Weather for Sheffield
Friday 10 February 2012
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Temperature: -6 C to 0 C
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