THEY have drawn with Ipswich Town and beaten Portsmouth – now Jack Ross wants his Sunderland players to extend their unbeaten start to the season with a positive result against another of the League One promotion favourites this afternoon.

Peterborough United might only sit in tenth position in the League One table ahead of today’s game at London Road, but their last two matches, a 2-0 win at Southend United and a 4-0 romp at MK Dons, more than justify their pre-season position as one of the bookmakers’ favourites to make it to the Championship.

In former Newcastle United forward Ivan Toney and the equally highly-regarded Mo Eisa, they boast one of the most exciting forward lines in the third tier, and in Sunderland-supporting midfielder Marcus Maddison, they can call on someone who has been the subject of sustained interest from clubs in the Championship.

Today’s game will be a major test of Sunderland’s own promotion credentials, but Ross is confident his players will pass with flying colours. They tended to raise their game against League One’s best sides last season, and have started the current campaign in a similar vein.

“This season, going to Portman Road and not being beaten, and then beating Portsmouth, were good early markers,” said Ross. “I’d always back the group to deal with these types of games because we’ve got enough big-game players in the squad.

“We’ve got players who if they have been at that level are adjusting to the demands of playing here and embracing that, meeting the challenge of playing the teams who are going to be up there as well.

“In the main, I think our better performances were in this type of game last season, and hopefully we’ll reproduce that at Peterborough.”

Eyebrows were raised when Posh lost their opening two league games of the season, but Darren Ferguson’s side have rediscovered their attacking prowess in their last two outings.

They were especially impressive as they trounced MK Dons, and while they might currently be four points adrift of Sunderland in the table, Ross expects them to be one of his side’s closest rivals come the end of the campaign.

“They started last season really well and fell away a little bit, but if you look at the players they still have and how they recruited in the summer, I think they still have ambitions to achieve promotion,” he said. “Although they had a sticky start, recent results have been very good.

“We always knew how difficult a month August was going to be for us on paper, so to come through as well as we have done to date is really encouraging. Now, we want to finish the month off. It would be a really, really good month for us if we could go there and win the game.”

Chris Maguire missed a chunk of training in the middle of the week, but despite having sustained a knock, last weekend’s hat-trick hero should be available for today’s game.

A number of Sunderland’s fringe performers impressed in the midweek Carabao Cup win at Burnley, with George Dobson and Will Grigg mounting especially strong claims for a prolonged run in the starting side.

However, having been at pains to stress how impressed he was with last weekend’s performance against AFC Wimbledon when he spoke to the media on Thursday, Ross is unlikely to make wholesale changes this afternoon.

Luke O’Nien is likely to revert to right-back, having played in the ‘number ten’ role at Turf Moor, while Aiden McGeady should return on the left of midfield with Charlie Wyke replacing Grigg in attack.

Sunderland (probable, 4-2-3-1): J McLaughlin; O’Nien, Willis, Ozturk, Hume; Leadbitter, Power; Gooch, Maguire, McGeady; Wyke.