Peterborough United manager couldn’t believe his side lost by three goals at West Bromwich Albion

Posh were forced to defend for long periods of the match as a barrage of corners and crosses came into their box. They managed to do so until the 78th minute when Darnell Furlong’s shot after pinball following a corner deflected in off Cedric Kipre.

Posh then conceded a further two times in the 85th and 89th minutes to cap off yet another away day capitulation. The second came after Posh committed men forward for an attacking free-kick but gave the ball away cheaply.

Ferguson said: “I cannot believe that we have last that game 3-0. Up to the first goal, I couldn’t see them scoring. We dealt with them, the shape was very good. I would have liked us to be a bit more threatening on the ball, but we couldn’t get our first pass off.

“Then, it’s 3-0 within 10 minutes which is a massively disappointing result.

“They are a very physical team and we knew we had to cope with that and we did it well. We frustrated them and the longer the game went, I felt if we could have got that first pass off and create on the counter attack we could have got something. We knew the longer the game went on, the pitch would open up.”

As with the defeat at home Coventry last week, Posh lost no ground despite the defeat as Reading were beaten 4-3 at home by Huddersfield in a thriller and Cardiff lost the Severn derby 3-2 to Bristol City in the lunchtime match.

Ferguson added: “It’s a real bad habit we’ve got of conceding late goals and I’m not happy about that.

“The free-kick shows a really naive way of playing. There is about 10 minutes to go and we’re playing a quick free-kick in the middle of the pitch against the best pressing team in the middle of the pitch in the league.

“When you put that much effort into a game, to concede from a set-piece is disappointing.To lose that 3-0 after being 0-0 after 78 minutes cannot happen.

“Sometimes you have to sacrifice how you want to play, we are a pressing team and we play out, but today wasn’t one of those days.

“I’m just disappointed for the players we couldn’t see it through because it looks like we’ve been battered but we haven’t.”