Darragh blown away by the work of the last 11 months

Posh chairman Darragh MacAnthony has been blown away by the work done by his managerial team since the play-off nightmare at Hillsborough 11 months ago.

Posh lost the last game of last season – a play-off semifinal at Sheffield Wednesday – 5-1 after taking a 4-0 first leg into the game, before missing out on a Wembley final in a penalty shootout.

That led to a re-tooling of the squad as senior players with promotion-winning experience left and a young, dynamic and speedy squad was introduced.

The rewards have been instant and a Wembley triumph could yet be followed by a promotion from League One, possibly after a second trip in six weeks to the national stadium.

"I’m really happy for all the players, their families and the staff,” MacAnthony said. “I said to them all, this is what hard work looks like.

"It’s the best managerial staff I’ve had. All of them have done a magnificent job and I’m so glad I invested in them last summer.

“A lot of hard work has gone into this. We all know what happened 11 months ago and I have seen all they have put into it since then.

"I’m so proud of them, it’s been really stressful at times, but I’m really proud of them.

"A few of the players at Wembley were involved against Sheffield Wednesday last year.

"They saw what happened and it was a good experience for them, even though it was a choke, but everyone who was there, and is still here, won at Wembley.

“They are men and they are good men off the field. We’ve got a real togetherness in the club right down from the under 7s in the academy to the first team. We’re together and when you’re together, you can achieve anything you want.

"The fans were also outstanding as they have been for the entire season. They’ve really stuck with us and I feel there is a real togetherness between club and fanbase now.

"We had thousands of new fans do business with us around Wembley which was great and we need to get them back to watch us more often. I see politicians have started talking about the new stadium again and I am convinced if we had one we could sell 15,000 tickets for games.”