Peterborough boss Darren Ferguson on the challenge of facing Charlton at The Valley

Darren Ferguson says that Peterborough were always set for a challenging afternoon at The Valley, even if Charlton were not heading into the match off a 6-0 thrashing of Plymouth Argyle.

The Posh are second in the League One standings but lost 1-0 at home to Gillingham in midweek.

“It’s a season where you’re moving on quickly, regardless of results,” Ferguson told Peterborough’s official website. “We spoke after the game Tuesday night, we know where we went wrong – that is gone now.

“They [Charlton] are in the final play-off place and it can be a very important signing for them – bringing Nigel [Adkins] in. He’s an experienced manager, a good manager, who has got teams out of this league before. They had a fantastic result on Tuesday night.

“It will probably give them a bit more confidence [Tuesday’s big win over Plymouth], but we treat each game in isolation. Whenever you play Charlton away it is a tough game. We’re going to have to play well to win. But that would have been regardless of league position of whatever the results on Tuesday night.

“We’re in a good position. You can sometimes over-analyse things or look at different permutations, but the simple fact is that after 42 games we are four off the top with a game in hand and seven off third. And we’ve still got two home games to go. It’s really in our hands. If anyone had said to any fan at the start of the season: ‘Would you take that?’ They’d absolutely bite your hand off. That’s the best way of looking at it.

“We’re capable of winning any game, if we get our standards right. We are going to have to perform better on Saturday, in many ways, to get the right result. We know that, but we’re more than capable.”