Peterborough United manager Darren Ferguson explains his transfer window logic

Twelve months after invigorating his side by signing Sammie Szmodics, Jack Taylor and Reece Brown in a January transfer window, Ferguson believes he has acted in the best interests of his club by declining MacAnthony’s offer of taking two new players to fill the gap in the salary cap squad left by Broom’s departure.

“It was 1pm on deadline day I was told we could sign a player and it was too late then,” Ferguson stated. “I didn’t to make a signing just for the sake of it.

“It’s been a diffcult window for us as we had to be mindful of the Siriki Dembele situation and the fact we have a club policy of having young players in the squad and in the team.

“That’s a great policy and one I have always been happy to work with.

“There was interest in Louis Reed and if he had gone we would have replaced him. We also made a bid for a player who could replace Siriki if he left, but once we knew he was staying we were never going to bring another forward in. That player has now moved on anyway.

“I don’t know if there was a perception out there we would sign six or seven players in January, but it was never the case. We decided before the Charlton game (January 19) we would go with what we had.

“It was different last year as we had been chasing Jack Taylor for a while and we felt we might miss out on him if we waited until the summer. We’d also tried to sign Sammie the previoius summer so there had also been interest there before.

“That wasn’t the case this year. We had done our main recruitment in the summer and we were happy with it.”

Dembele handed in a written transfer request last month, but wil now see out the season with Posh.