It was a tough year for Peterborough United, but all is not yet lost and who deserved a fond farewell in 2022 and who didn't?

Sure it’s not been pretty. Indeed it has been downwright ugly at times, but a year that started with Posh 22nd in the Championship and well on the way to relegation has at least ended with Grant McCann’s men in with a shout of on immediate return to the second tier.

Posh are seventh on New Year’s Eve, three points from the play-offs, after playing in fits and starts.

It’s still a brave man who would predict they will improve enough to win promotion and an even braver man who would give Posh a chance of staying up if they did manage to get up.

Posh collected just 53 league points from a possible 138 (a full season effectively) in 2022. There have been worse years including 1994 when 50 points were collected in a season that also included a second tier relegation.

Championship football is too tough for Posh. It’s certainly too tough for Darren Ferguson the manager who quit in February after a demoralising late defeat at relegation rivals Derby County.

February was the month that offered Posh hope in the fight for survival with several games against the other contenders for the drop.

Instead they embarked on a run of 11 Championship games without a win which sealed their fate.

Even with two teams – Reading and Derby – suffering points deductions Posh couldn’t escape the bottom three.

Whereas their last relegation campaign in 2012-13 had ended in glorious failure, this was one completed with barely a whimper, a phrase this paper used in October when the writing was already etched indelibly on the wall, much to the annoyance of players, officials and boardroom members who tried to hard to prove us wrong, but failed.

McCann replaced Ferguson within a fortnight of the multiple promotion winner’s departure and did eventually prompt some improvement, but it was too little too late.

Posh plugged away gamely, but were too often too slow in thought and deed and too weak in all areas of the pitch, unless they were playing QPR who they beat three times over the season, twice in 2022.

Some Posh folk were predictably bullish about an immediate return to the Championship (perhaps forgetting it took them eight years to bounce back last time), but so far the promised ‘Greatest Show on Turf’ has yet to materialise, although beating noisy neighbours Cambridge United in the first meeting for over two decades did provide some welcome cheer in front of a bumper crowd at the Weston Homes Stadium, the third best of 2022 after visits from Manchester City in the FA Cup and promotion-winning Nottingham Forest in the Championship.

City’s visit to London Road was an obvious highlight of the entire year. Even the reserves of the Premier League champions are easier on the eye than George Boyd in full flight and a 2-0 win was a decent result for both clubs.

Sadly beating Cambridge was followed by an exit from the FA Cup and a two-month run without a League One win which only ended last Thursday.

And yet some excellent home form, the goals of Jonson Clarke-Harris and some effective youthful exuberance has kept Posh in touch, but they will have to overhaul some big clubs to finish in the top six.

Only Plymouth of the teams above Posh have never played in the top flight of English football.

Taking that into account seventh place isn’t bad at all!

2022 record

Overall (all competitions)

P58 W20 D10 L28 F79 A85

Home

P30 W13 D5 L12 F47 A37

Away

P28 W7 D5 L16 F32 A48

**Fond farewells to sixties giant Frank Rankmore who passed away and to Sammie Szmodics who moved onto Blackburn Rovers in the Championship.

**A less than fond farewell to Siriki Dembele who cried, sulked and stomped his feet before leaving to sit on Bournemouth’s substitutes' bench.

**A fond farewell soon to Jack Marriott who, despite failing to spark consistently, was one of only two Posh players to rack up more than 50 appearances in 2022. The indestructible Jonson Clarke-Harris was the other.