Peterborough United chairman says Steve Evans appears allergic to praising an opposition team

MacAnthony used his ‘Hard Truth’ podcast to express bafflement at his former employee’s insistence Rotherham had deserved to win.

The Posh owner accused Evans of spinning a narrative rather than accepting his team were outclassed tactically by a Posh team who enjoyed a massive 75% of possession.

Rotherham led 3-1 at half-time before Posh fought back for a draw. MacAnthony described his team’s performance as ‘fantastic’ and ‘brilliant.’ He felt Posh ‘battered’ a much more experienced side.

"I’ve defended Steve many times before on the podcast,” MacAnthony said. “But he can let himself down in post-match interviews. Sometimes I have to question his credibility. He deflects and seems allergic to admitting the other team was better.

"I was keen to hear his comments after this game and I was very disappointed, especially as he’s supposed to be a local man and Posh fan.

"You can come out after the game and tell the truth. You don’t have to spin a narrative. Your eyes don’t lie, but maybe it’s an ego thing and he just couldn’t admit he was outclassed tactically and his team were dominated by a team who were eight years younger than his on average.

"I get he wants to defend his team and I get he thinks they should have won from 3-1 up, but if I was the owner of Rotherham paying big wages to experienced players I’d expect them to be on the front foot against a young side and to dominate the game.

"But we had 75% possession, our highest in a game for about 10 years. Even the Rotherham CEO said to Barry Fry during the game that it was amazing to see how we get young players performing ao well and fair play to him for saying that.

"But Steve instead went on about a penalty he reckons they should have had that was never a penalty. I would imagine every Rotherham fan would admit the referee got that one right.

"He reckoned his side missed a couple of great chances, but we missed three from two yards – Manny Fernandez, Ricky-Jade Jones and Jack Sparkes – and he said we only had two injuries, but he’s forgetting a couple of others plus the £500k left-back who hasn’t set foot on the pitch yet.

“We had 4/5 Academy players on the pitch and yet we were fantastic. We battered them. I felt we would either go under or grow up in the second-half and we were brilliant. We had a central midfield who have started 11 league games for us between them up against a midfield with hundreds of appearances.

"It would have been ok to say ‘we had injury issues, they had injuries, we scored three great goals on the breakaway, they dominated the game and are a very good team and we take the point on move on.

"Our manager always gives credit to the other team when it’s due.

"I tipped Rotherham to go up at the start of the season and I still they could. Steve is no mugs and nor are his players. He has put together an amazing squad.”