Peterborough United manager tried to focus on the positives from an FA Cup win, but he didn't entirely succeed!

Posh delivered another thrilling display of pacey, attacking football in a second round tie and outshot their opponents from League Two 17-5, but three of those five attempts on goal ended up in the back of the home net. It left Posh needing to come from 2-1 down at half-time and they had to endure a nervy couple of minutes before reaching Monday night’s third round draw.

It was a baffling afternoon in so many ways with County ‘keeper Alex Bass stopping Posh winning by a landslide. He was beaten twice by Ricky-Jade Jones and once by Joel Randall and substitute Abraham Odoh. In contrast Posh conceded a comedy third goal as ’keeper Nicholas Bilokapic slipped as he rushed an attempted long clearance kick and then ran into a goalpost as he unsuccessfully tried to save a long pop at goal.

Centre-back Emmanuel Fernandez was substituted at half-time in favour of teenager George Nevett as Ferguson stuck to his promise to replace defenders who are not performing well.

"Their third goal summed us up this season,” Ferguson said. “We were playing against 10 men at that point and yet we attempt a long pass, which we hadn’t done all game, when all we needed to do was keep the ball. I just don’t understand it. At 4-2 we became unprofessional and started passing the ball backwards and they score and we end up hanging on. It was a hard watch.

"The first thing I did at half-time was look back at the two goals we had conceded. They had two attempts on goal and scored from them both. I had to make a change. If players are not doing their jobs I have to replace them and George came on and did well.

"I do want to try and focus on the positives and the main thing was getting into the third round when the big boys come into the competition. I warned the players they wouldn’t want to be sitting watching the draw and Notts County end up with one of the big teams. It was important we didn’t let that happen.

"And these players are confident the attacking quality we have will get us back into games. We created so many chances and there was some great football from us. The central midfielders were good, Ryan De Havilland was outstanding, the substitutes made an impact and Ricky’s goals were excellent, the second one was a real striker’s finish.

"We started the game really well. We were very dominant and the goal Ricky scored that was disallowed should have stood. He wasn’t offside. We are looking like we will score three or four goals in every game and we might have to.”

Fernandez is suspended from Wednesday’s League One game against bottom club Burton Albion (December 4).