The Peterborough Evening Telegraph
Posh show top form for Fergie
Posh boss Darren Ferguson pointed out his side have delivered promotion form since he returned for his fourth spell in charge at London Road.
A 3-0 win at lowly Morecambe on Saturday was a fourth success in six League One matches since Ferguson was re-appointed. Four of those matches have been away from home and three have now been won with the help of clean sheets.
The result only maintained the status quo in League One as Posh remain ninth, nine points behind sixth-placed Barnsley, who occupy the last play-off position.
But, after back-to-back defeats, anything other than a three-point return from the Mazuma Stadium would have been disastrous even with 16 matches still to play.
“To win 3-0 away from home anywhere is a brilliant result,” Ferguson insisted. “And the result was muchneeded as we couldn’t afford anything else but a win today.
"And this was a good, comfortable victory. It was 3-0 at half time and should have been more as we had a couple of unbelievable opportunities other than the goals.
"But I can’t be critical of my team as we put in a really
professional performance.
"In the first half hour, we were everything we weren’t at Fleetwood in our previous game.
"We were outstanding. We moved the ball well and we were positive in everything we did.
"We were ruthless and killed the game off early and then we were very professional in seeing the game out with very few alarms.
"What I’ve seen in the six games since I’ve been back is lads who want to listen and learn. We’ve had four away games and we’ve conceded one goal.
“Leading up to the my first match, we had no clean sheets away from home and that’s changed dramatically.
"Four wins out of six is
good. If you do that throughout a season, you’ll get to 90 points and that’s usually enough to go up.
"The challenge now is string a long run of positive results together between now and the end of the season.”
Ferguson made two changes to his starting lineup with Josh Knight replacing Frankie Kent at centre-back and midfielder Harrison Burrows coming in for full-back Nathan Thompson, a move that meant Joe Ward playing at right-back, Kwame Poku moving to the wing and Burrows slotting into an advanced midfield role.
"Nathan had played five games in a row after hardly playing at all so he needed a break,” Ferguson added.
And Posh players took to social media after the game to express their delight at their win in Morecambe and confidence for the run-in.
Ward said: “It’s pointless worrying and stressing over losses and bad peformances as winning is all that matters right now and it doesn’t matter how it’s done.”
Skipper Jonson ClarkeHarris said: “I’m really happy about the 3 points. It was a testing week for us all so nice to bounce back after recent games. A much needed win for us and now we have to push on.”
And Knight, who reached 100 Posh appearances at Fleetwood, added: “It felt good to be back, to win and to keep a clean sheet.”