PETERBOROUGH UNITED comment after another FA Cup flop: ‘The diamond is forever, tough love for Eisa, Brown and Barker’s promise, VAR and the ‘magic of the cup’ phrase need binning’

As far as the FA Cup is concerned it was mainly the deeds of the Posh teams from the 1950s and 1960s that earned the club recognition as fighters and slayers of superior opposition anyway. It’s still 55 years and counting since Posh beat a team from the top flight and that never looked like changing against a weakened Burnley team at Turf Moor yesterday (January 4).

Ignore the closeness of the final 4-2 scoreline as Posh were swatted aside with ease. Just like the last game in the greatest knockout competition of them all against Premier Division opposition Posh conceded three times in the opening 30 minutes and spent the rest of the game trying to save face. Leicester’s back-up players won 5-1 at London Road two years ago after killing the contest in the opening exchanges.

You can imagine Posh boss Darren Ferguson urging his players ‘to keep it tight early on against another side in poor form’ and you can also imagine the dismay as a failure to tackle, mark and track runners ensured any Burnley nerves were calmed by goals on nine, 15 and 24 minutes.

In itself losing at Burnley is not much of a story, but Posh confidence must be low as they approach the final 20 League One matches of the season just five points off an autoamtic promotion place, yet on a run of four straight defeats.

FIVE THINGS WE LEARNT FROM YESTERDAY...

1) Ferguson appears to be wedded once more to the midfield diamond, a formation that hasn’t yielded a positive result away from home since October 19 at Gillingham.

Reece Brown’s arrival will improve performances as he played the ball quickly from the right side of the diamond into more advanced players yesterday and one excellent burst into the penalty area almost led to a Posh goal. It’s fair to say neither Josh Knight nor Alex Woodyard would have seen or made that run.

The quicker the ball gets to Marcus Maddison, who was showing signs of strong form again yesterday, and Ivan Toney the better for this Posh team. It’s entirely logical to get the best two players on the ball as often and as quickly as possible.

Ferguson gets a little prickly when questioned about the formation as he did yesterday, but the faults are obvious to us laymen. From the base Louis Reed is currently offering no protection to the back four and George Boyd, who was good in spells yesterday, is a willing runner, but can’t get out quickly enough to keep tabs on wingers who then run at full-backs, neither of whom excel at one-on-one defending.

Ferguson spoke of signing another midfielder after yesterday’s game. He’ll need to be very good to make the diamond work.

2) Kyle Barker’s 25-minute performance in place of Reed was impressive. He was confident enough to accept the ball under pressure and didn’t once give it away as far as I could tell. There needs to be caution shown with the teenager though. Ricky-Jade Jones and Harrison Burrows have experienced how hard it is for rookies to start games against seasoned professionals.

3) Ferguson made a point of offering words of encouragement to Mo Eisa after yesterday’s game. He replaced his 14-goal striker with 17 year-old Ricky-Jade Jones who promptly scored.

“Mo is having a tough time,” Ferguson admitted. “We have to look after him. He was never going to keep scoring at the rate he was, but he will be back.”

It’s vital he is as Posh look threadbare up top. Toney is wonderfully consistent and Jones has incredible potential, but that won’t be enough to secure a play-off place even if Maddison finds some consistency.

Eisa needs a goal quickly and hopefully a couple of new midfielders will improve the service to him.

4) I couldn’t put up with VAR every game. There were half a dozen checks yesterday, none of which altered a decision. Poor old Ricky-Jade Jones cut short his goal celebration just in case it was ruled out for a foul. A 17 year-old scoring at a Premier League ground should lead to scenes of unbridled joy, but instead we had frustration and concern followed by a slow, relieved walk back to the centre circle.

5) ‘The magic of the cup’ is a phrase that needs binning. Only 6,000 or so Burnley fans turned up yesterday and barely raised a cheer as their side romped to victory in a game with very little tackling and even less atmosphere.