Peterborough United were lucky not to concede ten as they 'let themselves and the fans down massively' in Oxford thumping, admits Darren Ferguson

The Posh automatic promotion hopes were all, but ended on a disastrous afternoon at the Kassam Stadium which finished in a 5-0 thrashing against possible play-off opponents.

Posh are not mathematically out of the race for second, but Ferguson admitted the race was over after the defeat. Posh now sit nine points off second with four games to play after Derby beat Leyton Orient 3-0. Posh still have two games in hand.

Bolton are now five points ahead of Posh after they held leaders Portsmouth to a 1-1 draw. Pompey now need just a point to confirm promotion and two points to seal the title,

Posh fell behind after 19 minutes when Jadel Katongo brought down Jacob Murphy in the box allowing Mark Harris to convert from the spot. Ricky-Jade Jones missed an easy opportunity to make it 1-1 before further mistakes allowed Jacob Murphy and Ruben Rodrigues to make it 3-0 before the break.

Ferguson showed his displeasure by making four changes at half time, taking off Josh Knight, Ephron Mason-Clark, Joel Randall and Katongo.

Posh continued to struggle in the second half and conceded a further two goals to efforts from Rodrigues and Billy Bodin.

After the match, Ferguson went all the way over to the away fans to apologise for his side’s performance.

Ferguson said: “The manner of the goals we have lost was so bad. To gift them the first two goals we did was awful.

“We actually started the half well and and had one or two good opportunities, but the manner of the goals we’ve lost, you can’t do that in a game of football.

“For the first goal, I don’t know why we go back. We could have gone forward at that point, the same with the second, Ephron goes back to Jed Katongo when he could go forward. The third goal, we’ve lost it and he (Josh Murphy) has just ran off us and it’s a tap-in.

“At three they’ve missed and open goal and I had to do something. We changed formation. It’s very rare I make any changes at half-time, but we had to do something today. I just said can we get as many balls into the box as we could and David Ajiboye was a threat.

“The fourth goal was pivotal, they got it. We got away with five as it could have been ten.

“Ricky has to score to make it 1-1, but all the quality, in defence, attack, transition, they were far superior.

“The next goal was always going to be crucial, but after they got it, it just became a mess.

"I was hoping the substitutions might spark a bit of life into us, but I have to take them out of the real criticism though because it’s hard to come on at 3-0.

“We’ve done nothing, but let ourselves down today, that’s not us. We’ve let ourselves and the fans down massively and we have to find a way of reacting

“We were absolutely outclassed in all departments. We can have no excuses, there is not one we can have for that performance; not the quality of team we are and not for what we’ve done all season.

“There might be tiredness, I’m 52, you get tired, you just have to get on with in, there can be no excuses at all from anyone. It was an awful day. I can’t accept that. That hurt me today, it really did.

“Second is gone as we couldn’t afford to drop any more points. Mathematically it isn’t, but I’d be amazed if we got that now.

“I had to go over to the fans to apologise. They have had a good season and now we’ve got to make sure that we don’t waste nine and a half months of real effort.

“Today was a huge game and it’s not as if we’ve come here and we’ve lost 1-0. The manner of that defeat was something I’ve not seen before.

“I have to find out the reasons we had such a terrible performance rather than just write it off. The manner of the defeat was worrying.

“We have to react, the automatic promotion is now gone, but we can still get out of this league. If we don’t get a reaction out of the players on Tuesday, I’ll be surprised. Regardless of the team I pick, this must hurt us all.

“We can go one of two ways/ We can either feel sorry for ourselves and just let the season peter out or we react on Tuesday and that will then give me the opportunity to rest a lot of players.”

Posh play one of their games in hand over Derby on Tuesday as they host Fleetwood. Fleetwood were 2-0 winners over Northampton on Saturday but are still strong favourites to go down, sitting six points adrift of safety with three games to play.