Peterborough United are going ‘back to basics’ for the visit of Derby County

Posh have been wounded by two poor performances and results at Luton (0-3) in the Championship opener last weekend and at home to Plymouth (0-4) in the first round of the Carabao Cup on Tuesday.

But Ferguson retains faith in his playing squad’s ability to keep pace with the relentless nature of the Championship.

Tomorrow’s game against a financially-stricken Derby side is live on Sky Sports.

Posh are expected to be without former Derby striker Jack Marriott and key midfielder Jack Taylor, but star forward Siriki Dembele has a chance of making the squad.

“We’ve been working on keeping the players’ confidence up,” Ferguson said. “They know they’ve fallen well short of the necessary standards so far, but I’m not changing my opinion of them after just two matches.

“It sounds simple, but we need to get back to basics. We need to keep things simple and play off the structure we want to play off. We drifted away from that at Luton.

“We need to stay calm, stick to the gameplan and hope we are good enough on the day, We need to make it harder for the other team to score.

“But remember we lost the first two matches last season without scoring a goal and we turned that around. It’s tough and relentless in the Championship because the games come thick and fast even though we have international breaks, but that should help us as I’m sure the more we play the better we will get.

“We need to get through this month with as many points as possible and then we come back from the first international break we will hopefully have a fully fit squad.

“It will be a tough game tomorrow and we will need to be much better. Derby’s problems have been well documented, but they can still field a good team and they played well last weekend (a 1-1 home draw with Huddersfield) with a good shape and structure.

“Derby’s difficult situation does make it easier for me to plan purely because they are restricted in who they can play.

“Obviously we will plan and prepare thoroughly for them, but as always it’s about what we do.”