Darren Ferguson disappointed to see his Peterborough United side 'go out with a whimper' in a match that looked like 'Championship vs League One'

Ferguson thought his side went out with a ‘bit of a whimper’ as they struggled to mount any kind of comeback after falling 2-0 down to two goals in the final 10 minutes of the first-half.

After an opening half an hour, when Ferguson his side were the better side, Posh were beaten by long-range strikes from Anthony Evans and Ben Wiles, both of which needed deflections to fly past ‘keeper Jed Steer.

Huddersfield were playing at a level above Posh last season and Ferguson felt that the second half performance showed evidence of that divide.

Ferguson said: “I’m disappointed with the result. We were the better team in the first third. We created the better chances and more than matched them. We looked good and gave them problems with the stuff we worked on.

“For whatever reason we lost confidence and belief when they scored the first gpa;. The second goal is a bit of a killer. We went down and they went up on confidence. You’ve got to keep the belief.

“In the second half, they were very comfortable, too comfortable for my liking. I tried to change the formation twice just to see if it would shift the momentum. We found the second half tough and we didn’t trouble them. We had one chance where Joel Randall has to hit the target. Cian Hayes came on and looked lively. The changes of formation didn’t work and we went out with a little bit of a whimper.

“We beat the press most of the time until they scored but then I don’t know if we got nervous or what? We’re not going to change the way we play, we were in business when we did it. The players can do it, but we didn’t make the correct decisions or change to what I wanted us to if we were being caused a problem trying to build out from the back. I’ve just told them, if I’m shouting what I want us to do from the touchline, their manager can hear it and adjust to it but if they do it naturally, it’s a lot more difficult.

“HUddersfield are a good marker for the top end of the league and, at the end, it looked like a Championship team against a League One team physically and they had too much for us. The first goal is always key. Ricky-Jade Jones looked a threat in the first half and he’s hit one just by the post. We should do better with a three-on-three situation. That’s got to be a goal. Chris Conn-Clarke should give it back to Joel.

“It’s a disappointing start for everyone, the fans included, but I think they’ll look at that and go Huddersfield did look like a Championship team and that’s the marker we’ve seen straight away. We need to learn from that quickly. There’s a lot to take out of the game. We’re going to learn a lot from the first game, more than we usually would given the opposition, but you have to say, in the end, we were well beaten.”

Ferguson will be hoping for a response when his side travel to the Kassam Stadium to face Championship side Oxford in the EFL Cup on Tuesday night (August 13, 7:45pm).