Peterborough United boss hails a vital victory against lowly opposition

It was only 1-0 and it was an inconsistent performance, but the win was deserved and that was all that mattered to Evans and his players.

Posh had picked up just two points from their three previous League One matches and they have struggled for victories at home all season.

But the win moved them up to fourth place, just two points behind second-placed Sunderland who have a game in hand.

“This was a vital win for us,” Evans, who watched the game from the director’s box while serving a one-game ban from the technical area, announced. “We’ve been through a tricky spell and we’ve struggled for victories at home so I told the players three points was massively important tonight. We now have a break from League One for a couple of matches and we take that break in a decent place.

“On another night we could have beaten Wimbledon by four or five goals. Matt Godden should have been taking the match ball home with him with the chances he had and we might have had two penalties for fouls on Siriki Dembele.

“In the end it’s taken a wonderful goal from Marcus Maddison to make the difference, but we deserved the win. It was a little bit frantic in the end, but now it’s over you’d say it was comfortable as they only looked like scoring when Rhys Bennett was shoved off the ball and Ryan Tafazolli came to the rescue with a goalline clearance.

“There were many frustrations for us, but we won and there were some industrious performances even from the likes of Maddison and Dembele which pleased me.

“The players admitted they’ve become a little bit nervous about playing at home, but this result will help. We know we have to sort the home form out to have any chance of being in the shake-up. Our fans who travel have seen some great performances and we want to transfer that form to home games.

“We’ve struggled to beat teams like Wimbledon in the recent past so we have to be pleased overall. We were commanding without getting the goals we deserved. We saw the game out well.

“Marcus gave us good penetration tonight. They looked terrified of him.”

Evans revealed that centre-basck Sebastien Bassong and on-loan striker Jason Cummings were both set to start tonight, but picked up slight injuries. It would have been Bassong’s debut.

Evans now expects to shuffle the pack for Saturday’s (December 1) FA Cup second round tie at home to League One rivals Bradford City and for next Tuesday’s (December 4) Checkatrade Trophy trip to Exeter.

Posh are nect in League One action at home to Oxford on December 8.