Peterborough United manager insists he did a 'damn good job' this season, but there's bad news about one potential signing

Posh have finished 18th – their lowest position at third tier level since Darragh MacAnthony brought the club – but at times in a frustrating, injury-ravaged campaign, it looked like it could have been even worse.

Posh lost their final League One game 2-1 at Rotherham United on Saturday despite taking the lead through Abraham Odoh after 35 seconds. They haven’t won any of their last seven League One games either side of a Wembley win in the EFL Trophy Final against Birmingham City.

Ferguson was not impressed with the final performance and he had more bad news to deliver as he doesn’t believe Tayo Edun will re-sign for the club when his short-term contract expires. Ferguson will now go away and complete his retained list for next season when he expects to see a big improvement.

Ferguson handed senior debuts to Joe Andrews and Andre Changunda as second-half substitutes.

"The game was horrible after the first 35 seconds,” Ferguson said. “We had the perfect start by scoring before they’d touched the ball and we had a couple of chances to score again, but the question was whether or not we could keep it up.

"And their first goal summed our season up to a degree. We have to show more desire to keep the ball out of our net, but he has just smashed us out of the way. No other team concedes a goal like that.

“After that it was a struggle. We had one or two opportunities in transition, but both goals we conceded were soft. We looked pretty on the ball at times, but we didn’t dominate it or get it moving forward quickly enough. There wasn’t enough energy from us until we sent the late substitutes on. Joe Andrews was good as he got stuck into tackles and Andre Changunda showed good intent.

"But the basics haven’t been good enough. We now go away and take stock and the reality is what we’ve got is what we have. It was always going to be tough with the players we lost and I really believe I did a damn good job keeping us in the league, I really do.

“No team has a divine right to be at the top end of the league and pre-season will now be very important because some players who are staying will have to step up as we can’t go out and sign five £1 million players. I am confident we will be better. We have to be or this season will become the norm.

"We are trying to keep Tayo and we will do our best, but it’s not looking likely. He is a good player who can perform in many positions and he will have offers from elsewhere. We have made our offer and nothing has happened.”

Malik Mothersille missed his first game of the season because of injury. Sam Hughes missed the match because of a knee problem.

Jadel Katongo, Ricky-Jade Jones, Kwame Poku and Hector Kyprianou will all leave Posh now. They all attended today’s game and Ferguson said: “They’ve all been a pleasure to work with.”