Oliver Norburn could keep the Peterborough United captaincy despite trying to leave London Road on transfer deadline day

Posh were rocked by Norburn’s desire to join Championship rivals Blackpool after the Seasiders made multiple bids for his services in the last days of the January transfer window.

Norburn, who has yet to comment, only moved to Posh from Shrewsbury five months ago, but it’s understood he has found life difficult in the area after his wife chose to remain living in Bolton with their young son.

Posh have sympathy for Norburn’s dilemma, but they turned down every Blackpool bid, while promising to re-assess the player’s situation in the summer.

And Ferguson is not minded to react by taking the captaincy away from the 29 year-old. Norburn missed last weekend’s defeat at Sheffield United with a dead leg.

Norburn was only appointed skipper in December.

“It will all depend on Ollie’s attitude,” Ferguson said. “And knowing his character and professionalism I expect he will get his head down and give his all for the club. If that happens I won’t take the captaincy away.

“His situation is difficult. We all understand that, but we didn’t want to sell him in our situation and so turned down several bids from Blackpool.

“You’d never have known from the manner of his performances that he was unhappy. He was genuinely injured and unable to play last weekend and we missed him.”