It was too boring, too often, but Peterborough United's 2022-23 season was far from a failure

Losing a 4-0 half-time lead with Wembley, and a possible return to the Championship, in sight was lamentable and undoubtedly embarrassing.

But Posh were within a couple of seconds, and one decent clearance, away from knocking the biggest, best-supported club out of the League One play-offs.

Even then a Sheffield Wednesday side that finished 19 points clear of Posh over 46 games needed a penalty shootout to progress.

It was heart-breaking of course, and it will sting for a while, but, although Posh fell short of their ultimate goal, the campaign, although too boring too often, was far from a failure.

How can a 6th place finish in the third tier for a club of this size ever be called that? It’s in the top 20% of finishes in the club’s Football League 63-year history for a start.

Only 11 times have Posh finished any higher. Only once in the golden era of the 1960s did Posh better their most recent finish.

Even Chris Turner’s brilliant Posh team ‘only’ finished sixth in the old Third Division in 1991-92, but they navigated their way through the play-offs to the Promised Land with a couple of late goals, rather than get knocked out with the last kick of a 210-minute tie.

This Posh team did well to get that close, but in the end it was lack of squad depth that did for them rather than a lack of bottle, the phrase too easily lobbed at the players, or a lack of managerial acumen, to paraphrase a ridiculous comment aimed at Darren Ferguson by a current player with a grudge.

Indeed shame on those who apparently verbally battled with players on their night out at the end of a long, arduous campaign, and shame on those who took to social media to bravely send anonymous attacks at the chairman on social media, while conveniently forgetting seven of those top 11 Football League finishes arrived on Darragh MacAnthony’s watch.

But MacAnthony likes a slogan for every season and the ‘greatest show on turf’ tag chosen for 2022-23 proved wildly inaccurate.

Only at Barnsley on the final day of the regular season and in that play-off semi-final first leg against Wednesday did Posh really put on a show, impressively so given the stakes.

And it’s a shame the memories of those games, and indeed of those occasions, will be tarnished by what followed.

But inconsistency dogged the side from day one and returned with a vengeance on day 48.

On the opening day of the season, to nick a favourite Barry Fry saying, the players were transformed from ‘Rag Arse Rovers’ to Real Madrid during the half-time interval.

Small winning runs were then replaced by longer runs without a success. Before Christmas Posh lost six competitive matches in a row and then five in a row.

Posh went on to win 24 League One matches (just two fewer than the team that won automatic promotion two seasons ago), but also managed to lose 17 (six more than the 2020-21 squad).

They took nine points from a possible 30 from the teams that finished above them.

And, beating champions Plymouth Argyle 5-2 at home aside, this was a season with too many dull games and too many flat performances, even after the return of Ferguson and the subsequent improvement in individual and team form.

Ferguson’s contribution was immense given what had gone before and failing to win promotion might actually prove to be a blessing in disguise, for him and the club. He’s a League One legend so he’ll be well in his comfort zone, should he decide to stay.

Of course there are greater riches available in the Championship and, given the chance, you may as well reset at the highest possible level, but Posh need to reduce debt this summer and the biggest stars, Jack Taylor and Ronnie Edwards, might still have been sold even if Posh hadn’t wilted under a ferocious onslaught at Hillsborough.

A season with those two in the second tier would have been scary. Without them it doesn’t bear thinking about.

As things stand Posh are without a manager, a CEO and three co-owners pulling in the same direction.

It might be worth a season of consolidation in League One if those issues could be sorted out effectively including the appointment of a manager to oversee a long-term project.

Natural-born winner MacAnthony won’t see it like that. Despite a bulging in-tray and the fact a piece of him died after a 12-yard shootout, he seemed remarkably chipper when appearing on instagram and his ‘Hard Truth’ podcast in the last few days.

He spoke positively about an exciting, young team to replace one with players who have overstayed their welcome.

And Posh could succeed again. The current scouting network – plus previous manager Grant McCann – found Ephron Mason-Clark at Barnet and Hector Kyprianou at Orient last summer.

And League One won’t take as much winning next season. There were outstanding teams with huge support knocking around last season and if Wednesday win the play-off final three of them will have disappeared and been replaced by three from the Championship with financial issues and one of them will start on at least -4 points.

And for the first time in over 20 years Posh will have both local rivals Cambridge United and Northampton Town for company.

The same Cambridge team that celebrated a last-day escape from relegation by losing several of their better players as well as an assistant manager. Things could always be worse.