AFTER witnessing Swindon Town’s new boys make an instant impact last weekend, Peterborough United manager Grant McCann believes that the County Ground has become a more ominous prospect.

In the last four weeks, the Posh have failed to win in four League One outings and were also knocked out of the FA Cup by Premier League leaders Chelsea, but they find themselves just five points outside of the play-offs ahead of their trip to take on Town on Saturday.

Ben Gladwin, Charlie Colkett, Fankaty Dabo and Islam Feruz all featured as Swindon won 2-1 at Bolton Wanderers in their last outing and McCann believes that those reinforcements will make his team’s task all the more difficult.

“I have watched Swindon’s win at Bolton and they were a completely different team,” the Posh boss told the Peterborough Telegraph.

“They have signed Ben Gladwin again and he is an excellent player at our level, and the three lads they have recruited from Chelsea (Colkett, Dabo and Feruz) are all very good players.

“It should be a good game between two footballing sides but we will go there looking for a win.

“If we beat Swindon and then win at Oldham on Tuesday, we will be right back in the play-off mix and with a game in hand on some teams.”

Mirroring how Town have lined-up recently, McCann is expected to deploy a diamond-shaped midfield at the County Ground and the Peterborough chief is sticking to his guns as far as formations are concerned, despite some fan criticism.

He said: “When we stopped playing 4-2-3-1, we lost two of 14 games.

“We do line-up in a diamond formation but it becomes 3-5-2 when we have possession and 4-3-2-1 when we don’t have the ball.

“It’s a way of playing I like and it’s one that suits the players we have, but all this talk of formations does become wearing.”