Fergie on a roll as Posh edge past Boro
IT’S BEEN a good week for Peterborough manager Darren Ferguson: first his side booked their place at Wembley on Monday and they followed it up with this hard-fought win at Stevenage.
For a long time, however, it looked as if the Johnstone’s Paint Trophy finalists were going to go home frustrated thanks to some resolute defending by the hosts.
But in the end Nicky Ajose’s 76th-minute winner was enough to win the three points that consolidates their play-off push but pushes Stevenage closer to relegation.
Ferguson said: “This was a tough place to come, especially after Monday night and all the excitement from that.
“In the end it’s taken a real quality goal to win for us with a great cross from Mark Little and a great finish from Nicky.
“They’re big lads and we didn’t want to just lump balls into the box, we had to put them in behind and that was a fantastic example of what we’ve done in training.
“I’m delighted with the win and you get some games where you look back and you think, ‘that was a good one’, and this is one of those.”
Peterborough had the game’s first chance when Tommy Rowe’s cross reached Danny Swanson, who controlled the ball well before forcing a good save from Chris Day.
Ex-Stevenage midfield- er Michael Bostwick soon tested Day again from 25 yards before Luke Freeman came close for the hosts when he bent a free kick just wide of the post.
Posh continued to press after the break with Britt Assombalonga having a shot superbly blocked by Stevenage captain Jon Ashton.
Darius Charles was to waste Stevenage’s best chance of the game when his rather tentative finish was kept out by Peterborough keeper Bobby Olejnik and he was to end up regretting it.
The breakthrough finally came for the visitors when Ajose got in front of his marker to tuck in Mark Little’s dangerous cross from close range.
Stevenage boss Graham Westley said: “Their goal came against the run of play – we’d had a very strong period of pressure where Darius had a great chance and their goalkeeper has made a good save.
“Before you know it, one long ball and they’ve got four attackers against our eight defenders, the ball managed to drop to one of theirs, get crossed by one of theirs and it’s in the back of our net.
“You couldn’t say that they had a sustained period of pressure where they took the game to us and in the second half we were the better team.”