VENGEANCE MOTIVATES FERGUSON & POSH
DARREN FERGUSON admits he had to shrug off bitter disappointment and a feeling of injustice at the end of last season – for the sake of his players.
Peterborough had one of the hardest cuts of all as the League One season came to a grinding halt last March because of the coronavirus outbreak, and in June the clubs voted that positions would be decided on a points per game basis.
It meant that Posh, then in seventh place but in form and having won seven of their last ast nine games, were leapfrogged by Wycombe for a place in the play-offs by
0.02 points.
Furious Peterborough cried foul, but could ld only watch helplessly as Wycombe went on to win promotion to the Championship via Wembley. “You have to move on,” said Posh boss Ferguson (top).
“You can’t keep going on about it. It’s gone, whether you like it or not.
“We arranged our pre-season very early, and had a long but a good one. That was our way of dealing with it.
“I think we would have finished top two if it had carried on. I could feel it.
“I’ve been promoted before. It was that stage of the season where I could feel what was going on.
“We had not dropped a point against anyone in the bottom half, and we had five games at home to come against teams in the bottom half. I’m not saying we would definitely have done it but we had a real chance.”
Outspoken Posh chairman Darragh MacAnthony (below) has called this season a “Vengeance Tour”.
He splashed out more than £3million on new players this short summer in a bid to bounce straight back and reclaim the Championship place they lost seven years ago. He reckons they were harshly denied at least the chance to get back last year, hence the vengeance vow.
Posh have won two and lost two of their opening gam games (including a 1-0 defeat at S Sunderland, below) and face a local derby at Northampton to today. Ferguson add added: “We all said we h have to use what happened as motivation.
“We showed the players a video of all the good stuff we did last year and the message was that we have to use it to drive us on. We are all hungry.”
He bought striker Jonson Clarke-Harris from Bristol Rovers for £1.2m, and midfielder Sammie Szmozdics from Bristol City for more than a million. Big spending for a League One club – but Posh have a point to prove.
Ferguson said: “We do. The owners are ambitious.
“They want to have a go. It helped with Ivan Toney being sold to Brentford.
“But a lot of clubs would have just have kept the money. Darragh has always re-invested.
“The club is in a good place now and we are moving on.”