Darragh MacAnthony will keep backing the Posh kids: ‘why would we restrict Ricky’s progress by signing a Premier League player on loan?’

Posh fielded three 18 year-olds - Ricky-Jade Jones, Flynn Clarke and Harrison Burrows - in their Papa John’s Trophy quarter-final defeat at Tranmere on Tuesday night, less than 24 hours after upsetting some supporters by refusing to make a transfer deadline day signing.

Posh boss Darren Ferguson had the opportunity to bring in a fresh face, but declined in favour of keeping faith with the young players in his first-team squad.

It was a move supported by MacAnthony and his fellow owners, even though the former chairman hammered the players after their defeat at Shrewsbury last weekend.

“The fans need to buy into our policy towards young players,” MacAnthony stated on his popular ‘Hard Truth’ podcast. “We want to be a club where the back-up player in every position is a young player. That’s where we are as a club.

“We had worked on three or four signing options if we wanted to pull the trigger in January, but the manager didn’t want to and credit to him for that.

“We still have two players for every position and we have some top young talent like the greyhound Ricky-Jade Jones. He is the best young striker we have ever had. We have massive belief he will become very special so why would we bring someone in that would restrict his progress?

“We will always support our manager. Time will tell if we were right, but I still believe in my team. I highlighted how poor we were at Shrewsbury because that wasn’t good enough for a team that was third, but I know the players well enough to know they will bounce back.

“We can go on enough runs of three or four wins on the spin to keep in the promotion race and we can keep winning at home. It will come down to the small margins.”