Peterborough United 'got what they deserved' from their clash with Plymouth Argyle

Posh were beaten 1-0 after a defensive error led to a Bim Pepple goal midway through the first-half.

Posh struggled badly in that opening half hour, but gained more possession as the match on without ever looking likely to find an equaliser. Their misery was compounded by injuries to Harry Leonard and Tom O’Connor as well as a red card for Peter Kioso.

Posh were knocked down two places in the table to 12th, but are still four points off the play-offs, with a game in hand, and only six above the bottom four.

Williams admitted that his side lost the physical battle and did not paly well enough to make up for it in any other way. He said: “The opposition were very good and we got what we deserved.

“The fight and willingness was there, but this team is always going to find it difficult to outfight an opponent. Whilst we need to fight and compete in every game, if we don’t control the game and play with composure we are flipping a coin every week.

“I imagine their game plan was very front loaded and they spent a huge amount of energy in the early stages to set the tone. We look liked we has weathered that, but then we conceded a soft goal and we lost Tom straight away and our rhythm was then broken a little bit. We never really managed to establish ourselves fully on the game.

“We snatched at too many, far too many speculative shots instead of building a proper move. Too many times we squandered possession high up the pitch. It became very bitty and the emotion started to run away with the players and the performance deteriorated.”

The Posh boss had a tough decision to make in the early minutes of the match when O’Connor picked up a booking after just four minutes for delaying the restart and then, barely a minute later, was responsible for a blatant foul on Tolaj.

Williams admitted substituting him did cross his mind, but he ultimately chose to trust his defender.

Ultimately, the decision was taken out of his hands where O’Connor limped off after 25 minutes, immediately after making the mistake that led to Plymouth’s winner. He was replaced by George Nevett for his first appearance since Williams took charge.

Williams added: “It was alarming ,but I trust Tom with his experience to be able to manage those periods. If it was a different player in a different stage of his career then maybe a substitution would have been the most sensible thing, but I would back Tom to manage himself from that booking onwards.”