Marcus Braddock looks ahead to Saturday's trip to Peterboroug
Shrewsbury Town are back on the road this weekend travelling to Peterborough to play United in League One. The Posh currently sit just outside the play-off positions having dropped a little from their excellent early season form. August saw Grant McCann's team win every league game they played, winning McCann the manager of the month award. However, since then form has dropped off and they now find themselves without a win in their last five league games.
Top Scorers
Twenty-year-old Former Ipswich youth player Jack Marriott is in incredible form with 10 goals from 14 league games since arriving in June of this year. He arrived in exchange for an undisclosed fee from Luton Town where he scored twenty-eight goals over two seasons. Previous to that he was sent on loan from the Tractor Boys, mainly to Woking, where he scored quite prolifically over three spells. He didn't score for Posh until his third game but did make up for it by scoring a hat trick away at Bristol Rovers; he scored twice in his next game at home to Rotherham and has scored five times in his eleven league games since.
Goals
Posh have scored exactly the same amount of goals as we have this season but they've conceded twenty-one giving them a +3 goal difference. Sometimes you get odd statistics, for example, Peterborough conceded just Four goals in four league games in August with 12 points taken but so far in October, the same amount conceded in just one less game have brought them just one point. On its own that comparison doesn't tell us too much but throw in the 12 goals scored in August and the three in October and we see that Posh are good when they can score more than they concede. Unfortunately, statistics can’t always tell you why something has happened or failed to happen, just that it has. I cant really fathom why Peterborough just stopped scoring so many goals, they don't seem to have lost anyone too vital up front or anywhere else as far as I can see so maybe it's something we cant see.
Goal Distribution
At home, Posh have only scored twice in the first half of home games this season. Their worst spell of games at home has been the last fifteen minutes of the first half, during which they've leaked four times. They seem to react well to this because their most dangerous spell is the first fifteen minutes of the second half with five goals scored this season.
Clean Sheets
2
The Managers
Posh manager Grant McCann feels that his team is capable of stopping our unbeaten run.
Paul Hurst is expecting another tough game.
Officials
Referee: David Webb from Lancashire. Games this season: 15. Yellow card average: 2.436. Red Cards: 0.
Assistants: Ian Dudley and Sam Lewis.
Fourth Official: Daniel Middleton.
Team News
You may already know that Junior Brown will be out of action for nine months because of a knee ligament injury.
Peterborough will also be missing their Junior with Junior Morias still out injured.
Summary
This is one of those games that could look easy to some, but won’t be. United's form has been patchy recently but they're more than capable of putting on a good display. There is talent within the Posh ranks and I don't think a draw would be a bad result as I think Posh are going through the bad patch that most teams experience in a season. They could get it together at any time and we have to make sure that it's not against us!
COYB!!!
Marcus