Peterborough United manager Darren Ferguson claims his side beat themselves with individual errors and naive defending

Posh went down 2-1 at Highbury after failing to convert an early penalty kick and then conceding a few minutes later. Dan Butler’s first Posh goal did get Fergie’s men back on level terms 10 minutes into the second-half, but some weak defending allowed Fleetwood to win the day 15 minutes from time.

The defeat dropped Posh from second to fourth and they could soon lose further ground as they don’t play again until February 29.

Posh were without suspended top scorer Ivan Toney and his replacement Mo Eisa was the man to miss the spot-kick.

“We beat ourselves and that was frustrating and annoying,” Ferguson said. “We should never have lost that game, especially after we got back to 1-1 as we looked the dominant side at that point, but we then conceded a poor goal just as we did early in the game.

“I told the players after the game I wasn’t going to praise them for collecting 18 points from the last 21. The previous six games were irrelevant today.

“We let a couple of things affect us too much. The penalty miss bothered us as did Fleetwood scoring from their first shot of that match. They were key moments as it’s so important for us to score the first goal.

“We look so dangerous when we score first, but we haven’t won a game after falling behind. I challenged the players to put that right in the second half and when ‘Buts’ equalised I thought we would. At the very least we had to make sure if we didn’t win we didn’t lose, but a naive piece of defending cost us the second goal and then it became difficult against the wind as they just sat in.

“We played better against the wind than we did with it. Once they scored first they just dropped off and made it difficult for us as they did when they beat us at home. We didn’t help ourselves by not passing the ball quickly enough. We couldn’t go through them so we had to try and go around them, but the tempo of our game and a lack of intensity stopped us doing that.

“I changed formation for the last 10 minutes of the first-half to try and get some width, but against the wind I felt we needed two up top and we were better. Idris Kanu was very good when he came on.

“Of course we were always going to miss Ivan. He is the best player in the league, but we can’t be seen as a one-man team. I came here confident we would win today and we would have done if we’d done things right so it’s a big disappointment to lose.

“I was confident in Mo taking the penalty. He’s scored his last two, but he’ll be the first to admit it was a poor penalty. It was straight down the middle at a great height for the ‘keeper.”

Ferguson was cautioned late in the game by referee Martin Coy.

“We didn’t get anything from the referee in the second-half and he couldn’t wait to book me for absolutely nothing,” Ferguson added. “We might have had a second penalty for a foul on Idris, but never mind the referee making mistakes, it was our own mistakes that concerned me more.”