Darren Ferguson praises character of his Peterborough United side for digging out victory at Shrewsbury despite 'not being great'

Goals from Ricky-Jade Jones and Hector Kyprianou sealed the three points the host had taken the lead with a fluke as Jordan Shipley’s cross ended up flying over Posh ‘keeper Nicholas Bilokapic because of the strong winds. Substitute David Ajiboye created the winning goal just two minutes after coming on as a substitute for Joel Randall.

The victory kept Posh in second place in League One and they closed the gap to leaders Portsmouth to five points after they were surprisingly held to a 1-1 draw at home by Fleetwood.

Rivals Northampton also did Posh a favour by beating Oxford 2-1 thanks to a last minute winner. Posh are two points clear of third-placed Bolton who beat Leyton Orient 3-2. The Trotters have a game in hand.

Ferguson admitted that his side were not at their best at Shrewsbury.

He said: “It’s a big three points. It’s just about getting the points on the board at this stage and we’ve managed to dig one out today.

“The conditions are what they are, you don’t expect much different at this time of year, but we handled it well. We didn’t start the game very well as we didn’t have enough tempo, but then we managed to get control of it.

“We weren’t great today, but we dug out a result and these are the important ones. I told the players at half time, these are the ones that you look back and think that was a big three points. I said we needed to improve our away form and we’ve got six points in our last two games.

“It was such a freak goal to concede. The boy has just hit a cross and it goes over Nick. The wind was causing a problem, but the reaction of the players to going down was fantastic. We showed great character.

"David Ajiboye went on and made a real impact. I was delighted with him, he’s done that quite a few times now. He’s a real handful and he was a different kind of problem for their left wing back as he went outside as opposed to inside like Kwame Poku.

“Joel did nothing wrong,but I just felt that Kwame can be a better carrier of the ball in the middle areas and he showed that.

“When we wen 2-1 up, we had one or two really good opportunities to kill it off, but we didn’t and then they were throwing everyone at it. We knew set-pieces would be a threat, but we dealt with it fine. It’s a very, very good result.

“These are no doubt the most important wins in terms of away from home, it’s the grind part of the season. These are the wins we’ve got to get. We’ve done that and we’ll move onto the next one.”

Posh are in action next on Boxing Day as they host Reading. The Royals beat Wigan 2-0 at home on Saturday and have lost only one of their last six league games.