Peterborough United players earn praise for an excellent 20-match start to the League One season

Posh are in fourth place with 38 points - the best return from the opening 20 matches since the club were relegated from the Championship at the end of the 2012-13 season - after last night’s (November 27) 1-0 win over AFC Wimbledon at the ABAX Stadium.

“It’s a great achievement to be so close to two points a game after 20 matches,” Evans enthused. “It’s certainly surprised a few people. Even members of my own family were telling me in the summer that I’d signed too many players and that we’d finish mid-table.

“Others were telling me we’d signed too many League Two players and too many players with no experience of League One so of course I’m delighted with what they’ve done so far.

“We will get better and we will need to get better, especially at home, because we are battling against some big clubs with big resources.

“We can only compete with the likes of Portsmouth, Sunderland and Luton because of the generosity of our chairman and we’re grateful to him for that. It’s satisfying that we are picking up points at a better rate than other Posh teams, but it’s where you finish that matters and we won’t be taking our eye off the ball.

“We should have won more convincingly against Wimbledon. Strangely my analyst tells me we are creating more chances than at the start of the season, but converting far fewer of them.”

Evans was forced to watch the Wimbledon game from the director’s box after picking up a one-game ban from the technical area for four yellow cards. He was the first manager to reach four cautions since the new rules on dugout behaviour were introduced at the start of the season.

“Some of the things I’ve been cautioned for have been ridiculous,” Evans added. “None of have been for swearing. At Coventry I was shown a yellow card for throwing my arms in the air and shouting ‘my ball’.”