Peterborough United left sweating on the fitness of star man after late injury

In what was a very worrying moment for Posh in stoppage time right at the end of the match, Dembele got his studs caught in the turf when trying to turn in a jostle for the ball.

He was down for several minutes holding his knee but did not require the stretcher and was eventually able to limp off the field with help.

With Marriott and Randall already long-term absentees and the possibility of a four match ban still hanging over Jonson Clarke-Harris, Posh can ill afford Dembele to be out for a significant period of time.

Ferguson said: “I don’t know on Siriki, he’s caught his studs in the turf and it’s a knee problem, which is always a worry. He managed to put some weight on it, which is a good sign but obviously we don’t know yet.”

Dembele will be assessed over the weekend but Ferguson insists that Clarke-Harris is fine after appearing to suffer a couple of different knocks during the match. He was able to appear in the match because Posh lodged an appeal on Friday morning, which they found out had been accepted at 3pm; meaning the forward became available for the match. Posh hope to find out in the coming days when the hearing will be.

Joe Ward was replaced at half-time to give summer signing Kwame Poku a league debut for the club, which Ferguson revealed was because Ward reported in the dressing room that he felt unwell.

“He felt ill, he reported that at half time so I had to make the change. I brought on Kwame who’s been doing very well, I know he’s not been featuring for the first team but he’s been doing very, very well; he’s a talented boy.”

“With Jonno, he’s fine. He’s got his ban but we’ve appealed it, that’s obviously the reason he was able to play and we’ll have to wait and find out when the hearing is. We have had no indication of when that might be as we only found out at 3 o’clock today that he could play.

“We couldn’t appeal until this morning, we did our due diligence and we’ve appealed the four game ban, which we think is very, very harsh.

“Thankfully, they said ok we’ll suspend it until the hearing takes place but when that takes place I have no idea. I think we’ll know more on Monday, maybe tomorrow. I’m hoping they won’t just say oh it’s on Tuesday morning and we’ll get time to prepare but that’s no excuse for tonight.