Peterborough United manager explains a shock debut for a teenage forward and admits the players left out weren’t happy

It didn’t help Posh claim a first goal in four matches as the contest between two struggling sides finished 0-0.

Posh have now scored one goal in their last six matches. They have failed to score in 11 of their 20 Championship games this season.

Corbett for Sammie Szmodics was one of five changes to the 4-0 drubbing at Blackburn Rovers on Wednesday night with defenders Frankie Kent and Mark Beevers dropped in favour of Ronnie Edwards and Josh Knight, while Conor Coventry and Harrison Burrows replaced Oliver Norburn and Joe Ward respectively.

Posh started the game with three centre-backs and a pair of wingbacks, but switched to a flat back four at the break.

A local power outage caused the floodlights to fail 10 minutes from time, but the game was completed after a 15-minute display,

“We haven’t been scoring goals so I wanted someone to play alongside Jonson Clarke-Harris, ” Ferguson explained. “And Kai is an out and out striker who gets in the box when the ball is out wide. He had one or two moments from crosses and he can be pleased with his debut. He didn’t let anyone down and he didn’t let himself down.

“I played Josh Knight and Dan Butler as centre-backs as I wanted them to provide attacking options. I had to make changes after a 4-0 defeat. I had to do something. Some of the players I left out weren’t happy, but I wouldn’t expect them to be.

“The endeavour was there, but the quality was absent. It was a game we felt we could win against a team who have only won twice all season.

“The floodlight failure actually helped us as we had some tired legs at the time. We came back and finished the game strongly.”