18:36 Thursday 25th April 2013
Drive BBC Radio Cambridgeshire
[C]HRIS MANN: Peterborough United boss Darren Ferguson says he won’t be keeping an eye on the other Championship results on Saturday. Posh kick off in their crucial game against Sheffield Wednesday at five twenty, but Fergie says he’ll resist the temptation of checking the progress of their relegation rivals. The Posh boss says he’s using previous experience to help him cope with the pressure. (TAPE)
DARREN FERGUSON: We’ve always had really important games at this end of the season, even last season. And there’s never been a year when we haven’t. In fact as a manager I’ve never had it. Even at Preston I was trying to keep them up, and things like that. I’ve never had a mid-table game that doesn’t matter. So I’m used to it, and I have to use all my experience. The players, a lot of them are used to it as well. And when it’s really come to the crunch, on the past that is, when we’ve been going for promotion, when we’ve been trying to stay in the league, we’ve always managed to succeed. And we have to try and do it again.
NICK FAIRBAIRN: Is there a feeling as well that if you could stay up this season Darren, that you’ve really been some way to establishing yourself as a real solid Championship club, from what you’ve learned this year, what you’ve learned over the last couple of seasons? Three years in the Championship, and suddenly you’re starting to drop anchor in the second tier, which is crucial.
DARREN FERGUSON: I’ve not really thought about next season. I’ve got to be honest. I think we’ve just got to get over this season, hopefully finish the job off. There’s a lot of things that we need to learn from this season, but I’ve got it in mind what I want to do in terms of all that, but I can’t .. unfortunately this is the problem when you leave it to the last minute, that you can’t really make plans for what you want to do, because you don’t know what league you’re going to be in. The budget, the revenues, really there’s a huge difference, especially in the television money. So I’ve got to be fully aware of that. But you would like to think that (with) the second half of the season that we’ve had would stand you in good stead for next year. Just like last season, when we had such a poor second half, and I did say that at the time, that if we didn’t pick up some results towards the end of the season it could bite us next season. And it did. It just was a follow-on of poor results. But we’ve managed to get back to giving ourselves a chance, also to it being in our hands. And I think with two games to go that’s probably the best we could have hoped for.
NICK FAIRBAIRN: You probably can’t answer this yet , because I think you’re off to training in a second, but Bostwick and Little, I know you’re going to assess them again. Gut feeling, what do you think?
DARREN FERGUSON: They’ve trained. They’ve trained. They had individual sessions, the pair of them. They’ve both come through it. They’ve both been put through their paces as much as we could possibly do. If there’s no reaction tomorrow, then they will be fit.
NICK FAIRBAIRN: Big decision I suppose, because you were saying although one side says well let’s gamble, we’ve only got two games left, but on the other, don’t want to be making changes after five minutes.
DARREN FERGUSON: No, I think the big decision I’ve got to make is obviously it’s two players that have had muscle problems, and my concern would be starting both of them. Because obviously if both went, then I’m using two subs up. So I’ve got to be aware of that. I’ve got to be sensible. But they’ve both come though it. Bostwick was really put through it today, and he’s no problems. We have to see how he is tomorrow, and I’ll name the team on Saturday. I’ll leave it to the last minute, because I have to see if there’s any reaction, which is not unusual. I’ve done that before. But the most important thing is all the players know how we want to play. They know what we’re going to do on Saturday. They know everything about Sheffield, and like I say, come quarter past five, whatever it is, they’ve got to go out and put a performance on.
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