The Peterborough Evening Telegraph
Posh pride in a special display
Posh boss Darren Ferguson hailed a ‘special night’ for the club after a 4-0 play-off semifinal first leg demolition of Sheffield Wednesday at the Weston Homes Stadium.
But Ferguson was also quick to bring his players down to earth, even though it will take a record-breaking display from the Owls tonight (Thursday) to deny Posh a trip to Wembley for the final.
No team has ever recovered a three-goal deficit from the first leg in a play-off semifinal never mind a four-goal disadvantage.
Posh scored twice in each half as goals from Jack Taylor, Joe Ward, Kwame Poku and Jonson Clarke-Harris delivered a result beyond the wildest dreams of Posh folk.
Ferguson believes it topped the magical night in 2011 when Posh knocked MK Dons out of the play-offs in a contest that was played out within a memorable atmosphere.
"Regardless of what happens in the second leg, you have to look back and say it was a special night,” Ferguson enthused.
"The fans were great. We’ve had nights like that before, but we’ve not had performances like this before. This tops even the Milton Keynes win for performance levels
and atmosphere.
"Obviously I’m delighted with the performance and the result. To take a 4-0 lead into the second leg is very, very good.
"The players took on board the tactics very well and executed the plan very well. They deserve a hell of a lot of credit because we were playing against a team that would have been automatically promoted in any other season and we’ve beaten them 4-0 emphatically.
“We felt they would press so we worked on how we could beat it and you have to give credit to the players. For some it’s their first-ever play-off match and their performances were very special.
“We managed the game really well as 2-0 at half-time
is a tricky score. Whoever got the next goal would get the ascendency and we got it. Getting the next goal was the clear message at half-time and once we got it we played some great football.
"The clean sheet was as important as the four goals against a very strong, physical side who are dangerous at set-pieces. Will Norris made a very important early save at 0-0.
“I’ve been waiting patiently for performances like this as I knew this set of players had it in them, and now we’ve produced two on the spin.
"We will need to find another one in the second leg as all we’ve done so far is put ourselves in a very strong position.
"We haven’t achieved anything yet, but a special mention for Joe Ward and Harrison Burrows playing out of position as full-backs.
"They are both very intelligent players, they both look after the ball really well and they were both excellent again.
"It was a great all-round team performance, one we will always look back on with pride.”
ANGRY OWL
SheffieldWednesdaymanager Darren Moore slammed his side's ‘unacceptable’ performance at London Road, but he stopped short of actually praising the Posh performance that embarrassed the hot favourites to reach the play-off final.
Moore looked shellshocked and a little bemused by what he had seen when conducting his post-match interviews.
His players were booed off by visiting fans at the final whistle.
"The booing was understandable,” Moore said “Because the emotions are high and they saw an unacceptable performance.
"We were all very sore. We didn’t work hard all week just to deliver that.
"It is an uphill task now because we're 4-0 down.
"Nobody is going to give us anything.
"We got ourselves into this mess and it's up to us to sort it.”