Peterborough United lost the plot and their automatic promotion hopes on a terrible afternoon at London Road

Even so Carlisle United at home should have been the mother of all banker victories. The Cumbrians started Good Friday 10 points adrift of the rest of the division having conceded six more goals than any other team and having won just five of 39 matches, although one of them was 3-1 at promotion-chasing Bolton Wanderers.

The Cumbrians also started the day a whopping 47 points behind Posh and yet they delivered the result – another surprise 3-1 away win – that has surely ended all possibility of a top 10 finish for Ferguson’s side.

Posh are now closer to the teams outside the play-off places (7 points) than the team in second place (10 points) and they have just seven games to play.

So how did this awful result and performance happen?

1) Complacency? Posh pinged the ball around prettily and at a decent tempo for 10-15 minutes without creating anything of note, but it was period of play that suggested the expected result was incoming. Until the game became stop-start, the wind started swirling and this rotten playing surface began to act up again. Posh seemed to believe they would cruise to success without breaking sweat, without closing opponents down and without stopping crosses or challenging Carlisle players when they entered the home penalty area. The timidity of Posh in the first-half in particular was alarming.

2) Wembley? Did this passive effort arrive because the players had their minds on a cup final at Wembley? One would hope not given the prize they were playing for yesterday was much greater. But for an hour there was a horrible lack of urgency and something caused it. Carlisle had greater passion and commitment and they are virtually relegated.

3) The pitch? Since Boxing Day the Posh home record in League One is P10 W4 D2 L4. That sort of form won’t get you promoted. It won’t even get you into the play-offs. You will never convince me the London Road playing surface is not having an impact on a team designed to play on the deck. Get down to ground level and see the bobbles the ball undertakes when passed about. Publicly there has been little moaning from within the camp lately, but a pitch completely unsuited to the way the team wants to play is more likely to lead to negative results than a large number of away fans.

4) The preparation? Post-match Ferguson pondered whether or not he’d given his players too much time off during the international break. It is a difficult balancing act for the boss as, given the hectic run of fixtures coming up in April, there will be no more rest opportunities, but whatever the players got up to when away from training clearly didn’t help. They played like complete strangers rather than the smooth passing machine seen for most of this season.

5) The forwards? Posh managed one shot on target despite dominating possession against leaders Portsmouth in their previous outing. Against much weaker opponents yesterday they managed a meagre two shots (from 23 attempts) on target and one of those was a goal. Carlisle goalkeeper Harry Smith made just one save, with his feet to thwart Ephron Mason-Clark, 20 minutes from time which is a dismal commentary on the Posh attacking play. Some of the decision-making was absurd with shots taken from distance by players who never score from that range. Mason-Clark’s shooting was horrendous and had a hit-and-hope feel to it. And the decision of Josh Knight to pass the ball backwards to the edge of the penalty rather than shoot when clean through was a mind-boggling moment. Two minutes later Carlisle scored their third goal.

6) The defence? Posh haven’t kept a clean sheet since winning at Cambridge on February 24. That’s six games in a row and the pitiful marking for the first goal and the weak headed clearances (Knight and Ronnie Edwards were the guilty men) that gave Jon Mellish the opportunity to score two cracking volleys were horrible moments. Second-placed Derby, who hardly have a fit striker, still claim wins as they can defend. Their last six games have yielded four clean sheets.

7) The manager? Barry Fry’s tactical gameplan was once famously described as ‘chaos theory.’ given his love for mass substitutions and getting as many attacking players on as possible. We saw something similar yesterday with a whole set of changes which, initially at least, seemed to confuse Posh players as much as their opponents. It’s true they did lead to some Posh pressure, but there was no control, there was no precision and no obvious new tactical plan even though a Harrison Burrows’ shot at goal which was turned in by Joel Randall gave Posh 35 minutes to rescue the game. Hell, there didn’t even seem to be an obvious formation. We had Jonson Clarke-Harris, Josh Knight and Ricky-Jade Jones all standing within 10 feet of each other at times. If Clarke-Harris is on the pitch you may as well whip crosses into the box – he almost scored from two of them – but instead too many passes were hoofed long and straight. And if this Posh team – one renowned for patient probing – resort to long throws against the team bottom of the table it’s safe to say the plot has been well and truly lost.