Whelpdale is happy but also exhausted
CHRIS Whelpdale was too shattered to contemplate a celebratory night on the town after a rare Posh win on Saturday.
CHRIS Whelpdale was too shattered to contemplate a celebratory night on the town after a rare Posh win on Saturday.New boss Jim Gannon asked Whelpdale to play as a right wing-back against QPR at London Road and the boy from Billericay ran the equivalent of a marathon to help Posh to a vaulable 1-0 Championship win.
It was an eye-opening as well as eye-watering experience for a player who has played at right back and right wing this season.
Whelpdale said: "I was just pleased the new manager wanted me to play and I enjoyed the role until the last 15 minutes or so when I was shattered.
"There is a lot of running involved in the position, but I felt it went well.
"I had a lot of possession going forward in the first half which I might have done better with and later on there was a lot of defending to be done, but we looked stronger than we have done for a while.
"We were all sluggish towards the end, but we got the win which was what really mattered."
Full match report: Posh 1, QPR 0
"There was a lot of relief in the dressing room after the game as well as a lot of happy faces.
"Obviously we haven't been winning very often this season which is probably why we got a bit tense towards the end, but the result will do us the world of good.
"I feel like we should have been out celebrating, but I was just too tired."
Gannon had talked about playing a 'broken 4-4-2' formation during his introductory press conference last week.
Instead he fielded Ryan Bennett and Tommy Williams either side of Craig Morgan as three centre-backs with Tommy Rowe, a star player under Gannon at Stockport, and Whelpdale deployed as wing-backs.
Charlie Lee joined Jake Livermore in the centre of midfield enabling George Boyd to play behind Craig Mackail-Smith and recalled striker Aaron Mclean.
Mclean responded with the only goal of the game in the ninth minute.
Gannon said: "I made decisions about the team based on what I knew, what I had heard and what I saw in training so it was an easy decision to play Aaron.
"It was the same with recalling Craig Morgan who was immense and the system did allow us to free George Boyd up.
"We wanted to shore things up defensively without losing any of our forward power and it worked for the most part."
Posh remain nine points adrift of safety at the bottom of the Championship ahead of two tough-looking away fixtures - at Cardiff tomorrow and then Middlesbrough on Saturday.
Email to a friend
Print this page - Popular
- Most comments
- Most shared
Looking for...
Featured advertisers
Local pages
Looking for a...
Jobs
Search for a job
Motors
Search for a car
Property
Search for a house
Weather for Peterborough
Saturday 20 March 2010
Today
Light showers
Temperature: 3 C - 13 C
Wind Speed: 19 Knots
Wind direction: South west
Tomorrow
Sunny
Temperature: 3 C - 13 C
Wind Speed: 10 Knots
Wind direction: South west
Your view
Please sign in to be able to comment on this story.