No aggression, no intensity, no quality as Posh stumble out of the EFL Trophy on a night of missed opportunities

A much-changed Posh team - Ferguson made seven changes to his starting line-up - went down 2-1 in a Papa John’s Trophy quarter-final tie, a second disappointing defeat on the road in a matter of days after a League One reverse at Shrewsbury on Saturday.

“It was a poor performance,” Ferguson admitted. “It lacked quality and aggression. The lack of intensity was really disappointing given what was at stake and as we had freshened the side up.

“One of the things I was looking for, apart from reaching the semi-final of a competition I wanted to do well in, was to see players really pushing for a place on Saturday.

“That didn’t really happen. Defensively we did fine and Frazer Blake-Tracy did well, but apart from that there was nothing. Only when we sent Sammie Szmodics on at half-time was there a surge in urgency.

“We didn’t carve out many opportunities ourselves. We had a couple of opportunities from their errors and Ricky-Jade Jones should have done better from a poor backpass, but if you play without intensity you won’t create chances.

“There wasn’t much in the game in the first-half, but we had someone duck in a defensive wall for the first goal and the second goal arived straight after we almost scored ourselves.

“It was poor overall, but I’d never write anyone off after one bad game, especially when you haven’t been playing regularly. You can actually play on our pitch as it’s quite flat, but it was very bobbly last night and you had to take real care over your touch and your passing and we didn’t do that.

“Tranmere played the better football and deserved to win. We were passive and not sharp enough. You look at that sort of performance and ask yourself why it happened.

“Was it rustiness? I thought about going with the regular first-teamers, but they looked jaded on Saturday. Bear in mind Tranmere made six changes to their side and we had a starting XI which should have been good enough to win the game.

“It’s a missed opportunity for the club and for some of the players.”

Posh now face back-to-back home League One matches against Crewe on Saturday (February 6) and Ipswich Town on Tuesday, February 9.

Centre-back Frankie Kent will be back at the weekend after a week off recovering from concussion and key midfielder should also be fit after suffering a calf injury at Shrewsbury.