EVANS SALUTES ‘FANTASTIC’ POSH
PETERBOROUGH United boss Steve Evans hailed his table-topping side’s desire after a dramatic victory at Southend United.
Two goals from Matt Godden put Posh in control at Roots Hall before strikes from Tom Hopper and Stephen McLaughlin brought the Shrimpers back level.
But Ivan Toney’s winSouthend ner three minutes from time secured a fourth successive away win for Posh to leave Evans delighted.
“We showed fantastic spirit and I thought we deserved it,” said Evans. “There were three parts of the game and for 70 minutes we were in control.
“We scored from a great set play we worked on in training and get a second one from another set play after that.
“But from total control we went to total chaos for 12 minutes and it was poor defending from us. At that point it looked like we are going to have to weather a storm with most of the fans in the stadium cheering for a home win. But we always looked like we could do something going forward and that’s the way it proved.
“We showed fantastic spirit to come back and although we’ll lose games this season and go behind we will never lose that desire we have. Only good teams will come to Roots Hall and do that, but we could’ve scored more.”
Posh opened the scoring in the 32nd minute when Siriki Dembele’s free-kick was chested down by Jason Cummings into the path of Godden, whose volleyed effort deceived Southend’s debutant goalkeeper David Stockdale.
And the visitors doubled their lead in the 57th minute when Ryan Tafazolli teed up Godden to score from Marcus Maddison’s free-kick.
Southend hit back with Hopper converting a left-wing cross from Harry Bunn inside the six-yard box in the 63rd minute and the Shrimpers drew level 12 minutes later with McLaughlin firing home a cross from Ben Coker.
But unbeaten Posh finished strongly and took all three points when Toney tapped home his first goal for the club from close range, to leave boss Chris Powell a dejected figure on his 49th birthday.
“It’s a tough one to take and it hurts,” said Powell.
“The boys showed tremendous resilience and character and on the balance of play I thought we were better team.
“But we keep getting hurt and we have to manage situations better. They were poor goals to concede and when we got back to 2-2 we had to make sure we stayed organised.
“We couldn’t afford to get hit by a sucker punch and we spoke all week about how they like to counter. “We managed that well, but not well enough. Sometimes we have to be a bit uglier and make sure we take something from the game.”