Peterborough United boss wants current squad to embrace the challenge of new players arriving at London Road

Posh have added veteran central defender Tom Lees and promising young midfielder Ben Woods in the last three days as they attempt to arrest a dreadful start to the season. Unfortunately neither player will be seen for a few weeks because of fitness concerns so the squad that has been involved in four competitive defeats to start the campaign will tackle unbeaten Barnsley in a League One fixture at the Weston Homes Stadium on Tuesday (7.45pm kick off).

Ferguson expects more signings before the transfer window closes on Monday, September 1 (7pm) as he believes the club's financial situation has improved since last season. When asked if it would be a couple more he replied: ‘probably more than that.’

"The players that are here need to embrace the challenge of new players coming in,” Ferguson stated. “They are coming in to help the team and we should all want that.

"I want lots of competition. I want the players to know that to stay in the team they have to be ‘at it’ all the time. I don’t think we had that last season. The squad wasn’t deep enough then, but we are in a better position financially now.

"There will probably be more than a couple more coming in. They are not coming because of what has happened so far this season. They are players we have been chasing for a long time and, in the case of some we are still after, a very long time.

“We have a pathway for some players we have already signed. George Nevett for instance will come in and out of the side, but we don’t expect him to play every week. He will stay in if he plays well of course, but he is one for the future as is Kyrell Lisbie. We didn’t see Kyrell playing every week when we signed him.

"Other players we signed for last season haven’t had the impact we expected and once I see that I have to act. Some players probably played too much last season.”

Summer signing Declan Frith could be involved against Barnsley after the winger missing the last two matches with an ankle injury. Whoever plays must help the team be better in both penalty areas, according to the boss.

Posh lacked quality and effective defending in Saturday’s 2-0 defeat at Wigan.

Ferguson added: “Lots of stuff on Saturday was good. In terms of getting to the edge of their penalty and of getting the ball into wide areas we did well, but we didn’t do the most important bits well. We didn’t have enough quality.

"We have to improve that and we have to stop giving soft goals away because if we don’t the results won’t change. Apart from the free kick at Cardiff the goals we have conceded have been our mistakes rather than teams opening us up.”