Defender looking to keep another clean sheet on the road at Peterborough
Shrewsbury Town defender Joe Riley can’t wait to take on Peterborough as he looks to play three games in a week for the first time since injury.Riley missed most of the middle part of the season after knee surgery, but has played a crucial role in Town’s six match unbeaten run.
Joe believes he is now over his injury and is looking forward to getting back out onto the pitch after Town’s win over Scunthorpe on the weekend.
“This week’s going to be a bit of a testing week because it’s the first week where there will be three straight games, but my knee feels good and I am ready to go”, said Joe.
“We look like we’ve formed a good partnership at the back, which is good. Competition is high and it’s obviously making people play better, which obviously you can see.
“Things are positive and I think the win at Scunthorpe has given us the confidence to go to top of the league places, win and be the better team.”
Peterborough currently sit ninth in League One after they lost 1-0 to Sheffield United on Saturday, but Riley admits that you never really know what you will get from the Cambridgeshire based club.
“The players that they’ve got make them a very very good team”, said the former Bury man.
“Maddison and people like that mean that if you do catch them on a good day you can be in for a good hiding, but I think with the confidence we’ve got and the belief that we’ve got at the minute we can go into it knowing we can get something from it.
“We don’t fear anyone. We’ve beaten one of the so called better teams in the league on Saturday, so we are hoping to keep that belief going into this game.”
Joe has been part of a back four which has kept three clean sheets in the last six games and he is really pleased with the way the team has been defending.
“I think we’ve got a bit of belief, confidence is a big thing and I think having a bit of a settled back four that has played a few games together is a big factor”, said Joe.
“We take a lot of pride in keeping clean sheets. I remember saying to Sads (Mat Sadler) after the Bury game that we were pleased to get the win, but a bit gutted not to get the clean sheet.
“It was a bit of a disappointment and I remember thinking we could have had a clean sheet there, but we went to Scunthorpe and got a clean sheet and that shows a great sign doesn’t it.”