The Peterborough Evening Telegraph
Chairman says injuries wrecked Posh campaign
Posh chairman Darragh MacAnthony has blamed misfortune with injuries rather than poor recruitment for the club’s relegation from the Championship.
MacAnthony, who plays a leading role in the club’s recruitment of new players, fired back at critics he claimed had scapegoated him after the drop back to League One was confirmed last weekend.
He used his ‘Hard Truth’ podcast to reveal his thoughts on a frustrating campaign.
"The recruitment wasn’t perfect, but it was very good,” MacAnthony insisted. “We did the best we could for a club of our size. We had targets that didn’t want to come to us.
"And the players I paid money for? I don’t regret signing a single one of them. They will all become successful players and assets for our club.
“Josh Knight has been one of our best players since January and two Championship clubs are after him.
"We spent £100k on Joe Tomlinson who’s been tearing it up with Swindon in League Two, but unfortunately has now damaged his MCL (knee ligament).
"We spent £250k on Kwame Poku and he’s shown what he’s about and in January we spent around £150k on Jeando Fuchs whose stats say he’s one of the best holding midfielders in the Championship.
“And Joel Randall will be a big signing for this club.
"We couldn’t have predicted the issues he would have, but we think we have got to the bottom of them now. (Manager) Grant McCann told me the other day he was surprised at how good Joel was after watching him train.
"I am not apologising for the recruitment and I am not apologising for relegation. I
would never do that. I have slogged my guts out for the club and invested a lot of time.
“If people need a scapegoat, I’ll be that, but there was no shortage of effort on my part.
“We have been decimated by injuries. If we had all our players available we would have finished in a comfortable position in the Championship.
“We couldn’t have foreseen Dan Butler, one of the top four left-backs in League One, missing half of the season with a terrible ankle injury.
"We couldn’t have foreseen losing Mark Beevers for four months and him failing to get his form back when he was fit again. Jack Marriott had his hamstring ripped off the bone, Jack Taylor missed two chunks of the season with hamstring injuries.
"Nathan Thompson has missed half the season, Joe Ward, one of the best wide players in League One, has missed 30% of the matches and Oliver Norburn damaged his ACL playing in an international friendly when we had just 10 games of our season to go, a pivotal time of the season.
"We also couldn’t have foreseen the condition Jonson Clarke-Harris would be in (at the start of the season). We had the strikers in the club to score goals in the Championship as Jack and Jonno have proved recently, but we haven’t had the players available all season.
“Blackpool had a good season, but I bet they picked the same players every game.”