Peterborough United boss grateful to his players for 'bailing him out' in Vertu Trophy semi-final victory
Manager Darren Ferguson has thanked his Peterborough United players for bailing him out in their Vertu Trophy semi-final victory over Cheltenham on Wednesday night.
The Posh boss admitted that it was a mistake to start the match with wing backs and three centre-backs. Posh were second best in the first half and, despite Hector Kyprianou giving them the lead, they deservedly trailed 2-1 at the break.
Ferguson made a quadruple change at half-time bringing on Harley Mills, James Dornelly, Ricky-Jade Jones and Malik Mothersille, and switched to a 4-4-2 formation. This paid dividends as a much-improved Posh ran out 3-2 victors with strikes from Abraham Odoh and Jones.
The win moved Posh just one match from making back-to-back Wembley finals in the competition and they will face either Birmingham, Bradford or Wrexham/Bolton in semi-final. The draw will not be regionalised, but the date of the draw has yet to be revealed. The semi-finals are scheduled for week beginning February 17.
Ferguson also praised the performance of club captain Kyprianou. The midfielder was the subject of much speculation in the January transfer window with the player insisting he didn’t want to leave.
Ferguson said: “I’m delighted. We knew what was at stake and we managed to dig it out. The first half was my fault, I picked the wrong formation. I thought it would work, but they just went right up against us, man to man, and we just couldn’t get through the press. Even though we went ahead, we had no real control so I had to change something at half-time and all the subs were very good when they went on.
“The players bailed me out, but it’s not before time! The most important thing is that we showed character to come back. The first half was a mess and the second half was exactly how you want a team to play, with energy, urgency, goals, chances created and we competed. The subs did well, the two young boys (Harley Mills and James Dornelly) did really well.
"For their first goal, it’s a good finish because it’s gone into the corner, but you show clips of players and clearly, he’s left footed, so show him outside. He cuts in on his left and it’s in. The second goal is really, really poor. I was going to make the changes anyway, I could have made the subs earlier, but I felt that getting to 1-1 at half time would be okay. but them scoring at the end didn’t really help.
“The personnel we picked couldn’t really go to a back four so that’s why the changes were made. The problem is I’m trying to get something going and it’s proving very difficult. I’ve seen a team that is lacking confidence, one or two really lack it, so I have to get that back into them, but the only way we’re going to do it is by winning games.
“Tonight though, I saw players showing character, which is really important. We have 17 league games left and hopefully two cup games to salvage something out of this season.
“Hector got the first goal and was the best player on the pitch by a mile. He was outstanding. He was the one that showed real composure. He was driving us on, especially in the second half. I’m delighted he stayed and he wanted to stay. You’ve seen a captain’s performance from him tonight.
“He’s been getting a lot of unfair criticism because he’s never really been smashing my door down saying he wants to leave.”