Darren Ferguson on Ephron Mason-Clark's desire to leave Peterborough United with a bang, walking away from a right-back signing and playing four wingers in a game!

Mason-Clark was sold to Coventry City for a substantial fee – one in excess of the £3.5 million bandied about on social media last night – on transfer deadline day, but crucially the Championship club loaned him straight back to Posh for the rest of the season.

Ferguson was delighted for Mason-Clark, and to see him come back to help Posh in their promotion push from League One. Posh are also in the semi-finals of the EFL Trophy and will find out their last four opponents on Friday evening.

"I want to build a team so it’s sad to lose him, but the numbers involved in Ephron's deal were too high for a League One club to ignore,” Ferguson said. “My main focus for this window was to keep the squad intact and the chairman came through with that in Ephron’s case. I doubt anyone else in League One could have pulled off the deal our chairman did.

"It’s a fantastic deal. We are pleased for Ephron and his family. We had a couple of conversations while the negotiations were going on. He has been fantastic all the way through it and Coventry have signed a fantastic player.

"We wish Ephron all the best, but he knows he still has a job to do here and trust me he is determined to leave us with a promotion and a cup.

"It's been a great window for us. My main focus was keeping the squad intact and we have done that. The lads had a real spring in their step this morning as everyone was still here. There were bids for other players, but this is a strong group and nothing upsets them.

"We tried hard for another right-back and we thought we had one, but I was put off by certain character references so we walked away from that one.

"We pursued Peter Kioso long and hard throughout the window, but Rotherham were adamant they wouldn’t sell or loan him so there wasn’t anything else we could do.

"Jadel Katongo will be a good player for us, and if teams play against us like Lincoln did then I’ll play wingers as full-backs. If we are going to have all the ball in games we may as well play more attacking players.”

Posh did sign Brentford winger Michael Olakigbe on loan during January and experienced goalkeeper Jed Steer had a change of heart and re-signed for the club two days after leaving them.

"Jed decided he’d enjoyed it with us and he wanted to stay and fight for his place,” Ferguson added. “And we were able to get the job done. It’s unusual to have four goalkeepers at a club, but Will Blackmore is still some way from returning.

"Nick Bilokapic will embrace the challenge from having Jed here. Jed did well for us, but before he came Nick had proved himself to be a fantastic signing with the second most clean sheets in League One before he got injured.

"Nick’s injury did him a favour in one way as he probably needed a break mentally. He’s still very young and he’d never played so many games in a row before.”

Ferguson also shrugged off criticism from some fans at making fewer signings than the two teams currently above them in League One, Portsmouth and Bolton Wanderers.

"What other clubs do doesn’t concern me until I have to make a plan to play against them,” Ferguson said. “I can’t control what they do so why worry about it? I can only concentrate on my own squad and we have had a good season so far.”