DARLINGTON will be hoping to finish the season with a morale-boosting win when they face Peterborough Sports today.

Quakers have dropped almost completely out of the play-off picture in National League North thanks to a run of nine winless games.

They’re three points behind seventh-placed Buxton, and to make the play-offs they need a very unlikely combination of results which involves them beating Peterborough, three clubs above them losing games, and Gloucester and Chorley drawing with each other.

“We want to finish as positively as we can,” said manager Alun Armstrong. “It’s been a disappointing second half of the season, loads of things haven’t gone the way they should have done from top to bottom.

“But it’s done now, there’s nothing we can do about it, we’ve got to be positive now and give the fans a little bit of hope.”

Quakers will be making their second visit of the season to Latimer Park, having already played Kettering in the worst goalless draw imaginable on a dreadful pitch back in March.

The game has been switched from Peterborough’s Lincoln Road for safety reasons because their ground only has a capacity of 740 and the club is working frantically to get their ground up to standard.

They were given a month’s extension by the league to get the work done in time, but that decision raised eyebrows and caused controversy with other clubs.

When the game was moved at short notice, Quakers decided to provide a free bus from Peterborough Station to Kettering for fans who had bought non-refundable train tickets in advance.

“We must be the only team that’s been to Banbury and Kettering twice in the same season," said Armstrong. "It’s not really something we want to do, but there was nothing we could do about it.

“If things had been done properly, then this shouldn’t have been happening, you’ve got to feel for the other teams in the relegation battle, such as Blyth, Farsley and Kettering, it’s not fair on them.

“We’ve got to go and put in a performance on a difficult pitch. We want to get a result and get rid of the stigma that we’ve got at the moment.”

Striker Junior Mondal is added to the squad after returning from his loan spell at Marske United, while defenders David Wheater and Kallum Griffiths are also included.

Five players will be finishing their loan spells this afternoon – Jacob Blyth, Nathan Newall, Niall Brookwell, Declan Howe and Jake Cooper – while some others are out of contract, like Alex Purver and Jack Lambert.

“We’ve a few players out of contract," said Armstrong. "I wanted all this sorted in January and it never got done for various reasons.

“We’re left with a lot to do to get this squad sorted for next year, it’s their final chance to show that they want to be a part of what we’re trying to achieve here.

"It might have to be another rebuilding job because we’ll lose some of our quality players like we always do every six months. We can’t do anything about it, because we can’t compete financially with other clubs.”