Manager Mick McCarthy is in full agreement with his Peterborough opposite number Darren Ferguson that today’s game at Portman Road is a huge one for both teams. Posh currently sit bottom of the Championship with the Blues one point and two places ahead of them, two points from the safety of 21st.

McCarthy said: “Darren Ferguson described it as huge and in my programme notes I’ve described it exactly the same, and of course, it is.

“What’s really important is that we finish in this league. Everybody wants me to dress this up — ‘Must-win game’, ‘We’ve got to win!’. What are we going to do if we don’t? Are we going to pack up and go home? That’s me finished?

“No, keep concentrating on every game that comes along and make sure we stay in the league. But this is a biggy. Let’s deal with this.”

McCarthy has shied away from referring to earlier matches as ‘must-win’ games in order not to put additional pressure on his players and he says there’s only one thing they need to achieve between now and the end of the season: “I said against Birmingham that we could lose that and then win five on the bounce.

“Do you know what’s ‘must’? That we finish one point above three other teams and we stay in this league.

“There’s no point in being out of the bottom three for the next 15 games and dropping in for the last 15 games or whatever we’ve got.

“Being out of the bottom three is important, of course it is, but I tend to look more in the long-term. You can have a great few games and you can get out of the bottom three, then have a bad few games and you drop back in.

“What psychological effect does that have then? That ruins it again. It might happen that we might be out, we might be back in because that’s where we are as a team.

“January might help us, but we need to be in January in good fettle, to be quite honest, rather than struggling.

“It’s a really important game this. The importance is having one point — because we’re not going to be relying on goal difference, that’s for sure — more than everybody else that matters.”

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