Peterborough United boss says starting places are still up for grabs as the competitive season approaches

Posh lost two friendlies at home to Championship outfit Coventry City today (August 29) with a stronger side beaten 2-1 and a second team losing 3-2.

Summer signing Ryan Broom scored a cracking goal in the first game with strikers Mo Eisa and Ricky-Jade Jones netting in match number two.

Most recent signing Jonson Clarke-Harris started the first match, but looked a bit behind some players fitness-wise.

“Jonson is probably a couple of weeks away from match fitness,” Ferguson admitted. “But we got a good 90 minutes into him today and we will work hard with him in the next week.

“It’s not as simple as thinking the first-half team will start against Cheltenham. In fact I’d say that won’t be the starting team. I had two strikers who scored today and two who didn’t so Ricky and Mo did themselves good today.

“I was disappointed with the first performance, albeit you have to take into account the strength of the opposition. Coventry are a very good side. They make you think and you have be very tactically aware to get the better of them.

“But we lost our structure and our shape too easily and we gave the ball away to quickly and cheaply which has been a feature of our pre-season.

“But we have good players and a good squad and we will learn and improve. It’s good to get a performance like that out of the system. The game will stand us in good stead.

“In the second game our level was better. Flynn Clarke was very good playing as a number 10, Harrison Burrows was good again and Ronnie Edwards did well against a strong, powerful striker.

“There were some strong positives overall. We got 90 minutes into Ethan Hamilton and 75 minutes into Dan Butler for a start.”

Ricky-Jade Jones limped out of the second match, but Ferguson believes he’s suffered a minor knock.

Ivan Toney didn’t feature today ahead of his expected move away from Posh nor did transfer listed pair George Boyd and George Cooper.