Darren Ferguson pleased to reach 'exciting part' of EFL Trophy, but missed chances are becoming 'ridiculous'

Posh are now just two wins from Wembley after seeing off League Two Crawley Town 2-1 at the Weston Homes Stadium on Tuesday evening.

Posh had to come from behind after Nick Tsaroulla fired in an impressive opener from rang,e but did so thanks to goals from Harrison Burrows and Ephron Mason-Clark before the break.

The margin of victory could have been much wider though with Malik Mothersille missing a great chance in the first half before substitute Joel Randall wasted two glorious chances in the second-half.

Posh’s reward for victory is a home tie against Wimbledon in the quarter-finals next Tuesday (January 30). The winner will then go into an open draw to decide the semi-finals ties.

Posh will be without captain Harrison Burrows for the tie, however, as he picked up his second booking in the competition last night for kicking the ball away in the closing stages.

Ferguson said: “I’m delighted as the main thing in a cup game is to get through. We’re a couple of games from Wembley so it now gets to the exciting part.

"We made some changes. There were players that needed 90 minutes, which showed, but we got through it against a tricky team.

“I like the way they play. It’s expansive - almost like an U21 team - and they had nothing to lose. They make mistakes, but the manager tells them to keep doing it and they caused us problems. I knew this game would be an awkward one.

"I’m disappointed by their goal as he got a shot off too easily. We weren’t anywhere near aggressive enough in the first 20-25 minutes.

“They pressed us and we had the wind against us, and they went right up against us. We needed to play in behind a lot more and once we started doing that with a bit more quality, it definitely had an effect. They certainly weren’t catching our players in a foot race.

“We got a bit of a break with the equaliser and then we started being more aggressive off the ball and get the goal from it.

“We should have scored two more in the first half, but they’re a hard team to play against.

"We can’t keep relying on coming from behind, but it is a great trait. What we do need to do better is to start killing teams. off.

"We can’t continue to miss these chances, it’s going to catch up with us eventually. It’s ridiculous now, especially as we do enough work on it. I don’t know if it’s composure or what, but we are missing the easiest chances.

“We could have scored another 20 goals this season comfortably. We had four open goals tonight. Malik first half, Joel has had two in the second half and I could go on and on.

“I don’t want to say we’re getting away with it because we’re deserving to win games, but we need to be more ruthless.

“The amount of opportunities we’re getting and missing, easy ones as well, that aspect was a bit disappointing. We’re through though and we’ve been able to get 90 minutes into a few players who needed it so I’m delighted.”