Next Up: Peterborough United vs Exeter City
City competed well but a toothless display in attack meant Birmingham emerged victorious 1-0 despite barely troubling Joe Whitworth themselves, and with two more players not available Gary Caldwell will need to scrape together a side to take on a surprise struggler on Tuesday night. Jack McMillan will miss the trip having seen red at Birmingham, while Vincent Harper will be sitting out the next week or two following the head injury that saw him spend Saturday night in hospital. Kevin McDonald was pressed into service as an emergency centre back and performed well in the role, but the recalls of Ed James and Cheick Diabate from loans will hopefully plug the gap left by the departure of Tristan Crama and the injuries to Pierce Sweeney and Johnly Yfeko. Ilmari Niskanen will expect to return to the side while there may be a reshuffle with Josh Magennis back in to lead the line.
If you’d been asked before the season where Peterborough would be as we move into the second half of January, most people would have said the top six rather than the bottom six. However, the latter is where Posh currently find themselves after just two league wins (over two sides in the relegation zone in Cambridge and Crawley) since the end of October. There was some respite in the shape of an EFL Trophy win over runaway League Two leaders Walsall last week while a 0-0 draw with in-form Leyton Orient on Saturday will have been treated as a positive. Darren Ferguson has been busy in the January window with new forward Gustav Lindgren scoring twice against Walsall, while City supporters hoping to see former favourite Joel Randall in action will be disappointed as he signed for Bolton. Part of the issue with Peterborough this season has been the injury to Kwame Poku, who hasn’t featured in over a month having scored ten goals in 17 league games. Archie Collins is an automatic choice in midfield but Jack Sparkes, signed in the summer from Portsmouth, has been out of the side more than in of late but will hope to play against his former club.
There was little sign of the trouble ahead for Peterborough when they came from behind to win 2-1 at the Park. Reece Cole gave City an early lead but this was immediately cancelled out by Mothersille before Fernandez scored what turned out to be the winner on the stroke of half time. It was the same scoreline when City visited London Road last season – Mason-Clarke gave the hosts the lead, Carroll equalised but Poku scored the winner in the second half. City have a horrible record at Peterborough, with no wins at London Road since December 1988. As a result Peterborough have the lead in league head to heads, 17-13 with 19 draws.
The match officials for this game will be:-
Referee: Sunny Singh Gill
Assistant Referees: Ollie Williams and Christopher Husband
Fourth Official : Craig Hicks
Sunny’s last game in charge of an Exeter match was the Portsmouth game at home in December 2023 which finished 0-0. Sunny has also refereed the 2-0 defeat away at Derby in October 2023 and he also took charge of the home game against Lincoln City the previous season which City won 2-1 but had Alex Hartridge sent off.