Matt Taylor has insisted that he wants to send Bristol Rovers supporters home from the Mem with something to shout about one final time this season on Saturday as the Gas welcome promotion-chasing Peterborough United in their final home game of the campaign.
Rovers were able to return to winning ways in BS7 against Posh's Cambridgeshire rivals Cambridge United on Tuesday evening after almost two months, winning 1-0 thanks to a late Chris Martin winner, and are keen to repeat that effort against League One's best attacking side.
Darren Ferguson's men top the charts in the third tier for goals scored with 84 and still have an outside chance of sneaking into the second automatic promotion spot after Portsmouth were confirmed as champions on Tuesday. It's very much in Derby County's hands who look set to clinch that second promotion place but Peterborough boast a game in hand. Regardless, Saturday's visitors already have a play-off spot secured and will certainly be amongst the favourites out of the eventual four to go up should that be the route they have to go down.
Rovers haven't won three games in a row all season but have one final opportunity to do so this weekend with Taylor wanting to finish the campaign as strongly as possible with a trip to Wigan Athletic next weekend the final hurdle. Asked how his side keep a clean sheet against such a high-quality offensive side like Peterborough, the Gas manager smiled: "It’ll be a difficulty but we’ve got to try. We’ve also got to take the game to them. That’s two games on the bounce where our attacking play has generated opportunities. If we learn how to take penalties it would ease the pressure a little bit in front of goal but also make the goalkeeper and the backline work a little bit more than we did and if we do that more then the ball is closer to their goal than it is our own goal.
"But the best attacking team in the league. Some fantastic players. Some pace, some power and some serious quality there. A team to be admired but, as always, we’re at home and we want to force the game a little bit.
"They’ve got three games left as opposed to our two so still pushing as everyone is. But I want our team to keep pushing as well and probably the performance against Bolton was close to being better and we were close to getting a reward out of the game and we want another performance this weekend, our last home game this season in front of our fans and hopefully we’ve got something to shout about."
As was always going to be the case, as it was ahead of the 2-0 defeat at London Road back in September, there was some discussion about Jonson Clarke-Harris ahead of Saturday's game. The former Rovers striker famously missed out on a return to the club for a fee that would have smashed the club's record on deadline day last summer by a matter of seconds.
It now appears as though, after limited involvement this term, the 29-year-old will depart Peterborough on a free transfer at the end of the season but still remains a major threat to the Gas having come off the bench and scored two goals in a 4-1 win over Fleetwood Town in midweek.
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The understanding is that Rovers made it clear ahead of the January window that they wouldn't be making a second attempt to purchase Clarke-Harris and, when asked if that ship has fully sailed, Taylor quickly shut down the question, saying: "It’s wrong for me to talk about any other player at any other football club. He’s contracted elsewhere. I don’t like it when managers talk about players from our club who are contracted, it’s wrong to do so. I certainly won’t be answering any questions in relation to that."
On the striker himself though, the Gas boss added: "It shows their strength in depth because he’s not been overly involved for a period of time now but a player with his quality and you bring him on and he scores two. He might be involved, he might start this weekend. Obviously there seems to be a connection from before my time. I think that’s publicised in terms of what could have happened and what didn’t happen at a late stage in the window. Does that affect what we do going into this weekend? In all honesty it doesn’t.
"We speak about every player in the same breath of this is there dangers, their qualities, and they’ve got a lot of them. I don’t think it affects the fans or the game in any way. We want them to put their best out there because we want to keep challenging ourselves against some of the best teams in the league and Peterborough are certainly that."
