Peterborough United have sought psychological help to try and overcome a big mental block

Posh players celebrate Sirki Dembele's winning goal at Hull earlier this season.

Manager Darren Ferguson is convinced one win and seven defeats on the road is a mental issue rather one caused by a lack of ability within his playing squad.

He introduced a psychologist to the squad this week as part of intense preparations ahead of tough Championship trips to Stoke City on Saturday and Blackburn Rovers next Wednesday (November 24).

“The difference between our home performances and away performances is too vast to be down to ability,” Ferguson stated. “I’ve never seen such a big difference in performance levels depending on where we’ve been playing in my career.

“It has to be a mental thing and I brought outside help in this week to see if that makes a difference. I’ve tried this before. It can be very useful.

“We have to sort it quickly for many reasons. Everyone is talking about it and everyone is asking questions about it which is fair enough. We can only make those questions go away by improving.

“And we have to as if we carry on like we have been doing we will just be putting far too much pressure on our home form. We’ve worked on the issues with the players this week because we have to help them get through it.

“I have told them ability is not an issue. You only have to look at the way we’ve competed at home to see that. But the players clearly lack belief away from home.”

The sole Posh away win this season arrived at fellow strugglers Hull City who missed a penalty midway through the second-half. Only Barnsley have failed to win an away game this season and they visit Posh on November 27.

Posh have conceded 22 goals away from home, four more than any other team and have a negative goal difference of -17 on their travels which is the worst in the division by nine goals.

Ferguson added: “We showed we could get a result when we needed one at Hull and the lift it gave us when we played QPR at home soon afterwards was obvious.

“But we then played poorly at Swansea in our next away game. There were mitigating circumstances though. I’d like to think we won’t be 2-0 down after 12 minutes again.”