Peterborough United manager still has his sights set on automatic promotion

Joe Ward celebrates his match-winning goal for Posh against Burton earlier this season.

But the Posh boss admits it will take a repeat of their recent six-game winning run for it to have any chance of happening.

Defeat in their last game at Fleetwood and two weeks off while their promotion rivals all played means Posh have dropped from second to sixth.

But they remain just six points outside the automatic promotion places with 11 games to play, the first of which is at mid-table Burton on Saturday (February 29) when Posh will again be without League One’s top scorer Ivan Toney because of suspension.

“The top two is absolutely the target,” Ferguson stated. “But we will have to repeat the long winning run for it to happen. We are capable of doing it again and we are still within reach, but our focus for now is on winning at Burton and that won’t be easy.

“They are a funny side because when they are on it they play very well, but they’ve obviously lacked consistency.

“They played with a back three for the first time at Southend last week and won for the first time in seven matches. But it will be tough. We are away and our away form is not great.

“We did beat Burton without Ivan earlier in the season so it can be done. That was a horrible game, but I’d settle for that and another 1-0 win.

“I didn’t pay much attention to the results while we weren’t playing as I couldn’t affect anything, but they went pretty much as I expected.”

Wing-back Joe Ward will attempt to score for Posh against Burton for the fourth game in a row on Saturday.