The Peterborough Evening Telegraph
Dreams can come true for a team with character
New Posh boss Steve Evans will leave the dreaming to others as he plots a course to the Championship.
Evans has overseen two wins in his first two matches as Posh have climbed from eighth to sixth. They have reached the play-off places for the first time since December 30, but there will be no resting on laurels from the new manager or his players.
Evans was naturally delighted by the 4-1 home win over Charlton on his Posh debut last Saturday and by the gritty 1-0 win at rock-bottom Bury on Tuesday, but he knows there will have to be further improvement if his team are to extend their season well into May.
Jack Marriott scored twice against Charlton and then nicked the last minute winner at Bury to take his goals tally for the season to 28.
“In terms of character, passion, spirit and determination we have been world class,” Evans stated. “But in terms of free-flowing, passing football wecandomuchbetter.Wewill have to in order to win games regularly.
“I couldn’t have asked for a better start to my time at the club and I thank Grant McCann (former manager) and chairman Darragh MacAnthony for leaving me such a talented squad.
“We all know what we want from this season, but I will leave the dreaming to the chairman and the fans.
“As a group we have to stay focused because in this league as soon as your intensity drops you get a custard pie in the face and we don’t want that. We are all here to win football matches so I have congratulated the players on winning the last two games, but I left them in no doubt that we will have to be better to win enough games to stay in the play-off places.
“We were very good in spells against Charlton, but we were also very sloppy in spells.
“We gave the ball away in bad areas and we lost our composure for a bit at 2-0 up. We seemed to panic. No-one in my management team will criticise a player for getting the ball down and trying to play, but we lost our way a bit either side of their goal.
“But no-one should question the commitment of these players after the way they played at Bury. We could have scored a couple of goals in the first-half , but Bury were a bit better than us in the secondhalf and we had to dig in.
“Some people have told me we might have lost that game earlier in the season, but we knew we would have a chance of winning if we could keep a clean sheet as we have so much quality going forward. Marcus Maddison was awful at Bury, but I kept him on because I felt sure he would deliver one good pass in that game and he did.
“Marcus is probably the one player on the pitch who could have played it and Jack Marriott was the one player on the pitch capable of taking the chance. We were under the cosh a bit, but we kept trying to be positive. My substitutions were made with the intention of trying to win the game and it paid off in the end.
“But it doesn’t matter where we are in the table now. It’s where we finish that matters and we have some very tough games left this season.”
Marcus Maddison now has 15 assists this season, the most in the top four divisions.
Former Posh manager Grant McCann has been praised by his successor.
Evans: “We will have to play better in order to win regularly.”