Fascinating transfer window insights from Posh chairman including rows, bidding wars, eight rejections, alternative targets, a player who declined to leave and a favour from Aston Villa

MacAnthony has finally recorded his first ‘Hard Truth’ podcast since the window shut on September 1.

He has revealed transfer negotiations with AFC Fylde re forward Danny Ormerod were almost abandoned in favour of a move for Exeter City striker Jayden Wareham.

MacAnthony also disclosed he was turned down eight times by Wrexham before landing midfielder Harry Ashfield with minutes to spare on deadline day and that centre-back Josh Feeney was never on the Posh target list until injury struck Tom O’Connor down again, but a permanent deal for the 21 year-old Aston Villa defender is a possibility.

The chairman also revealed forward Chris Conn-Clarke turned down a move away from London Road after Posh had agreed a £300k transfer fee with an unnamed club. This bid was accepted after deadline day so must have involved a National League club.

Midfielder Donay O’Brien-Brady was also close to a departure, but MacAnthony insists transfer window business was ‘brilliant.’ Posh made 11 signings in the summer transfer window and let six transfer-listed players leave, albeit on loan in most cases.

MacAnthony said: “Josh Feeney was never on our target list, but we felt we had to do something because of our injuries. We knew a lot about him as he’d been at Huddersfield and Aston Villa did us a huge favour to make sure we didn’t break the salary cap rules. I only do loans though if there is a sniff of a permanent transfer. I don’t what what happened with Jimmy Jay Morgan to happen again.

"We had been trying to sign Harry Ashfield since May, He was on our target list when we all met in Miami. He is physical and strong and all the metrics and data suggested he was a ‘Peterborough United’ player.

"But right up until deadline day the Wrexham CEO was adamant he was only leaving on loan and we didn’t want that and nor did the player. Josh Windass (a Wrexham player) played a massive part for us. He told Harry coming to Peterborough was the best move he could make.

"But we were turned down eight times until I decided to have a ninth go on deadline day. It started at 3.30pm as I was driving to our game about Stevenage and we finally had a chance. The player and his agent were keen and eventually we agreed a sizeable fee with add ons and got the deal done. I didn’t tell anyone at the club as we had a game to prepare for and I didn’t even tell Barry Fry. I just told Liz the secretary to get the papers ready.

"I woke up the next morning not sure the deal had been ratified, but we had done everything correctly and Harry was ours.

“We spent 12 months on Danny Ormerod. We identified him as a target a year ago and to be fair to Danny once he knew were involved he only wanted to come to us because of what we do for strikers. And that was despite a League Two club who had been buying everyone tried to sign him. Danny’s determination to us restored my faith in the system.

"But Fylde are owned by a character. I had a few rows with him over the summer. He had a figure he wanted and we had a figure we wanted to pay which is fair enough. We offered players on loan for free, but he wanted a substantial fee without add ons. Eventually I believe the owner didn’t really want to stand in Danny’s way as he only had a year left on his contract.

"At one point we felt the deal was dead so we turned to Jayden Wareham who had also been on our list. We made a call to Exeter who welcomed it as they were keen to sell. We were sure Danny would be a better partner for Harry Leonard which is no slight on Wareham who is a great League One striker. We were ready to get into a seven figure bidding war with Wycombe, but we had one more go for Danny as we felt his value would only go up he kept scoring for Fylde and we got it done.

“It was a brilliant transfer window. We only just missed out on Donay O’Brien-Brady leaving, and we then did a deal to sell Chris Conn-Clarke for £300k two days after the window closed, but he turned the move down.

"We have a large squad now and when everyone is fit we will need to shift players out on loan to non-league as our budget is now bigger than I wanted. If Chris had left it would have solved that problem.”

Wareham subsequently moved to Wycombe and has scored in his first two games for ‘The Chairboys.’

Salford City are believed to be the League Two club that tried to sign Ormerod.