The Peterborough Evening Telegraph
Fergie explains decision not to recruit in January
Posh have defended their decision not to sign a new player in January for the first time in co-owner Darragh MacAnthony’s 14 and-a-half-year reign at London Road.
Posh spent the last week of the latest transfer window rebuffing offers for forwards Siriki Dembele and Mo Eisa, as well as young attacking midfielder Flynn Clarke, before allowing Ryan Broom and Serhat Tasdemir to leave the club on loan.
Interest in out-of-favour midfielder Louis Reed didn’t develop, while Barnet’s pursuit of young Kyle Barker ended when it became likely the National League could soon shut down.
Championship side Norwich City made their move for Clarke at the end of last week, but Posh were quick to reject offers of £300k and then £700k for the 18 year-old.
A club source told the PT the offer was ‘derisory and peanuts for a player who is worth millions now.’
The source also pointed out Norwich paid Coventry City £3 million for James Maddison at 18 in 2016 and sold him to Leicester for £22.5 million 30 months later.
The promotion-chasing Canaries may return in the summer for Clarke who would then have just one year left on his contract. He’s scored three goals in just six starts for Posh.
But, 12 months after invigorating his side by signing Sammie Szmodics, Jack Taylor and Reece Brown, Posh manager Darren Ferguson believes he has acted in the best interests of his club by declining MacAnthony’s offer of taking two new players to fill the gap in the salary cap squad left by Broom’s departure.
“It was 1pm on deadline day I was told we could sign a player and it was too late then,” Ferguson stated. “It’s been a diffcult window for us as we had to be mindful of the Siriki Dembele situation and the fact we have a club policy of having young players in the squad and in the team.
“That’s a great policy and one I am happy to work with so it wouldn’t have been fair to bring in say a Premier League player on loan who could keep a young player out of the squad.
“We spent a lot of money in the summer assembling a biggish squad and we still have two players for every position which is important.
“There was interest in Louis Reed and if he had gone we would have replaced him. We also made a bid for a player who could replace Siriki if he left, but once we knew he was staying we were never going to bring another forward in.
“I don’t know if there was a perception out there we would sign six or seven players in January, but it was never the case.
“It was different last year as we had been chasing Jack Taylor for a while and we felt we might miss out on him if we waited until the summer.
“That wasn’t the case this year. We had done our main recruitment in the summer and we were happy with it.”