Peterborough boss hails Brady for doing 'fantastic job' given 'budget restraints' at Cobblers

Peterborough United manager Darren Ferguson has hailed Cobblers boss Jon Brady for doing a ‘fantastic job given the restraints he works under’ ahead of tonight’s derby showdown at London Road.

Posh, who will move to within four points of the top two in League One with victory tonight, have not lost a home derby since 2006 when Scott McGleish scored the only goal of the game in a 1-0 Town victory.

But Cobblers triumphed at Sixfields back in August and are enjoying their best season in League One for some time.

"Jon's done a fantastic job given the budgets and restraints he works under and he has good players,” said Ferguson. “They are having a great season and we are in no doubt it will be a tough game.

“It looks like Sam Hoskins is back now and he’s having a really good season, but they also have other threats. It seems a long, long time ago when they beat us this season, but they’re in good form still with one defeat in their last six matches.

"They have changed their style quite a bit this season. They play some good football, but we are looking forward to the challenge.”

After four successive defeats last month, Peterborough have won their last two in the league and remain very much in the hunt for promotion.

Ferguson added: "We’ve won three in a row and won the last two League One games which we had to do just to stay in touch at the top. They haven’t been fantastic performances, but we ground out two league wins and sometimes that generates confidence in a team.

“There are certain things I wasn’t happy about on Saturday, but there was a definite improvement in the second half and we need to take that into tonight’s match.

"It’s one of our games in hand on some teams so we have to win it. There is so much quality in the teams above us we can’t expect them to slip up too often, but we can't really afford to slip up at all.”