Darragh MacAnthony is not for turning over Peterborough United's recruitment policy despite a bad six months

And he remains convinced players the club signed last summer will also eventually prove their worth. He also hinted at longer-term deals for January signings Sam Hughes and Tayo Edun. Centre-back Hughes is on loan from Stockport County and left-back Edun, a player Posh tried to sign for £500k in the summer of 2021, signed a four-month contract after leaving Charlton Athletic.

MacAnthony insists the club will continue to stick broadly to their policy of signing young players they can develop despite the disappointment of a season which sees Posh languishing in 18th place and in the thick of a relegation battle.

Speaking on the latest edition of his ‘Hard Truth’ podcast, MacAnthony said: “We can’t be clouded by one bad six-month period and just change the way we recruit. We have to stick to our guns and continue to do what we’ve been good at. I’ve been doing this for 19 years and you don’t become bad at recruitment overnight.

"We can’t become gun-shy because we have had some bad results. As Barry Fry said to me the other day we are still getting bids of millions for our players even though we are 18th in League One. That suggests the recruitment has been good.

"There was a deal to be done for a non-league player this month, but we didn’t move and he went to a top-eight Championship club. We need to reawaken the beast and back our judgement.

"The plan remains to finish this season strongly and have a real go at the top end of the table next season. We’ve signed well this month with the three new defenders and a striker who we believe will be a top player for us. Maybe they could all stay at the club for longer.

"If we made a glaring mistake in the summer it was not signing a Sam Hughes in the summer. We were beaten to the punch on a couple of centre-backs, but that can happen. We did think with Rio Adebisi at left-back and Jadel Katongo or James Dornelly at right-back we would be okay in those positions, but injuries have hurt us.

"Carl Johnston could become Harrison Burrows-like. He’s an outstanding one-on-one defender and we can work on his attacking play in the summer. If Chris Conn-Clarke gets one goal he will probably get 10 and I am convinced there’s a player in Abraham Odoh.”

Posh were in the running to sign Leicester City centre-back Lewis Brunt in the summer, but he moved to Wrexham instead after the Welsh club reportedly offered £3k a week more in wages. Brunt has started just eight League One games for Wrexham.

MacAnthony has been booked to appear on a couple of transfer deadline day shows on Sky Sports. The transfer window shuts on Monday, February 3 at 11pm.