IT’S 25 miles from the John Smith’s Stadium to Hillsborough – but as far as Paul Dixon is concerned, it may as well be a million.

The fact Sheffield Wednesday host Blackburn in South Yorkshire this afternoon means Town will climb out of the drop zone by beating Peterborough in another battle of clubs currently in the Championship’s bottom six.

Town will also be hoping Burnley account for Bristol City at Turf Moor and Crystal Palace beat Barnsley at Selhurst Park.

But Dundonian defender Dixon insisted: "We don’t want to be relying on other teams doing us a turn. It’s in our own hands and we have to keep it that way."

That means picking up three points against Posh in the first of six crucial games against sides currently in the bottom half of the table between now and the end of Town’s first second-tier campaign since 2000-01.

Twelve years ago, it all ended in tears as an unlikely set of final-day results conspired to send Lou Macari’s side down on 48 points, just one more than they have going into today’s crunch clash.

Mark Robins’ men have no wish to be going into the final game at home to Barnsley on May 4 needing the points to stay up, and proud Scotland international Dixon continued: "The way the fixtures have fallen means that all the remaining games are pretty much six-pointers.

"Right from the start of the season, our objective was to stay in this division, and we know we have the ability to do that."

Since their sweet 2-1 derby win at Leeds and the international break which followed, Town have suffered two 1-0 defeats – at home to Hull last Saturday and at Bolton on Tuesday.

But left-back Dixon maintained: "We limited both those two to just a few chances while making plenty ourselves, which is a real positive.

"If we weren’t making chances, it would be a problem. It’s unfortunate we have been unable to take them, but that will come, hopefully starting against Peterborough.

"We’ve also shown plenty of fighting spirit, particularly at Bolton, where I thought we were really unfortunate not to come away with at least a point.

"That makes us even more positive about the games coming up, and like I say, our destiny is in our own hands."

Town went down 3-1 when they visited Posh in October, and Dixon recalled the spectacular long-range strike by George Boyd, who also netted a stylish winner for Hull at the John Smith’s last Saturday.

"His goal for Peterborough was one of those rare speculative strikes which on another day, probably wouldn’t have gone in," said Dixon, 26.

"The other two were poor ones to give away from our point of view, and it’s obviously important that we keep things tight at the back today while making a strong start to the game.

"We need to carry on the good performances in recent games and turn those narrow defeats into victories, and we believe we can do that."

Dixon might come from a city which is famous for producing jam and marmalade, but this is the first time in his career he’s found himself in such a sticky end-of-season situation.

"When I was at Dundee we were generally pushing for promotion to the Premier League, and with Dundee United, we were trying to qualify for the Europa League," explained the man who made the exceptionally short journey from Dens Park to Tannadice in 2008.

The man who enjoyed Euro clashes against both Greece’s AEK Athens and Polish club Slask Wroclaw headed to England on a three-year contract last summer and added: "It was a big move to bring my young family down here.

"I think it took me six months or so to really settle in fully, and since I’ve got used to being here, I think my game has improved.

"Hopefully I can keep playing regularly and make a big contribution to keeping this club where we all want to be."