Peterborough United chairman believes a crippling injury list stopped a comfortable finish in the Championship

Posh were relegated back to League One at the weekend, but MacAnthony, speaking on the latest edition of his ‘Hard Truth’ podcast, insisted there were mitigating circumstances.

Hard Truth

“We have been decimated by injuries,” MacAnthony stated. “If we had all our players available for all of the season we would have finished comfortable in the Championship.

“We couldn’t have foreseen Dan Butler, one of the top four left-backs in League One, missing half of the season with a terrible ankle injury.

"We couldn’t have foreseen losing Mark Beevers for four months and him failing to get his form back when he was fit again.

"Jack Marriott had his hamstring ripped off the bone, Jack Taylor missed two chunks of the season with hamstring injuries, Nathan Thompson has missed half the season, Joe Ward, one of the best wide players in League One, has missed 30% of the matches and Oliver Norburn damaged his ACL playing in an international friendly when we had just 10 games of our season to go, a pivotal time of the season.

"We couldn’t have foreseen the issues Joe Randall has had and we couldn’t have foreseen the condition Jonson Clarke-Harris would be in (at the start of the season).

"We had the strikers in the club to score goals in the Championship as Jack and Jonno have proved recently. They’ve been a lethal partnership.

"Look at how well Blackpool have done, but I bet they were able to name virtually the same side down all season.”

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