Oliver Norburn issues apology to Peterborough United fans after derby defeat at Cambridge

Goals from Harrison Dunk and Sam Smith were enough to see off Posh, putting an end to the club’s six-game unbeaten run with an underwhelming performance.

Bristol Rovers snatching a point against Derby County with a 95th minute penalty was a crumb of comfort for Posh as it kept Darren Ferguson’s men in the play-off places with four games to go.

Norburn, however, was disappointed with the team’s performance and felt compelled to apologise to the fans.

The midfielder was making his 50th appearance for the club and played 82 minutes before being replaced by Joel Randall as Posh chased the game.

Norburn said: “We’ve let the fans down and we’ve let ourselves down, it’s as simple as that. We apologise to the fans. They’ve come out in good numbers. We know what it means to them, it means a lot to us players too, but we have to move on quickly. There’s a game on Tuesday night and we’ve got to respond.

“It hurts, especially with it being a local derby, but not only that, we’re fighting at the right end of the table and this is a kick in the teeth.

“We just weren’t good enough. We didn’t do the basics - they did them much better than us - we didn’t win enough tackles, or enough second balls and we didn’t move the ball as fluidly we have been doing in the last few games. It hurts to say, but we were second best.

“We came off second best in all departments and that hurts more than it normally would. It’s a poor opening goal to concede and you can’t do that

“It hurts but with a game so soon, we can put this one behind us and hopefully respond in the correct manner. We’ve got to stick together, we’ve been on a fantastic run, we’ve played some of our best football this season and let’s get back to doing that.

“There are four games left and we’ve got something to fight for.”

The Posh man has said that he is feeling good following his return from injury but when pushed about the performance of referee Ross Joyce, refused to make any excuses.

Sykes drew the ire of visiting fans for failing to award Posh a late penalty after Jonson Clarke-Harris appeared to be pulled down in the box, while giving the home side a series of free-kicks in the second half and failing to add on more than four minutes, despite several stoppages.

Norburn added: “I won’t blame the referee for our performance. We’ve got to take the responsibility as players sot I’ll let others be the judge of that. I think Jonno should have had a penalty late on, but that’s not an excuse as we’ve not done the basics we need to do in any game.

"I feel like my performances have been good and worthy of staying in the team because Hector was doing very well before that.

“I probably dropped below that today, individually and collectively we did, so we’ll have to dust ourselves down and be ready for Tuesday. I’ll be ready.

“I love playing with Jack Taylor aswe understand each other’s game. We’ll have to get used to teams pressing onto us more though, that’s what Cambridge did today and it stopped us from getting control of the game. It’s down to us to find ways around that.”

Posh are at another relegation-threatened team in Accrington Stanley on Tuesday.