Peterborough United manager warns the Championship to watch out once his forwards are fit and firing, but Ricky-Jade Jones is out for 12 weeks, plus absences because of a birth and a bereavement

There was bad and good news for Posh yesterday (August 14) with teenage striker Ricky-Jade Jones ruled out for 12 weeks with a knee injury the day before Jack Marriott made his long-awaited return to the starting line-up in the 2-1 win over Derby County at the Weston Homes Stadium.

Marriott played for just over an hour against his old club before he was replaced by Siriki Dembele. Dembele scored the winning goal in the 99th minute on his first appearance of the season.

“An enormous amount of credit to the players for winnning that game as some are nowhere near full fitness,” Ferguson admitted. “Jonson Clarke-Harris and Jack Marriott are nowhere near it, but I had no choice but to play them.

“We got an hour into Jack which was great and Jonno got another 90 minutes which was a great effort because he is far from match fit.

“And we got 40 minutes into Siriki which was also a bonus. He looked good and took his goal superbly.

“We will try and accumulate as many points as we can before the first international break and then we will hopefully be at full fitness.”

Midfielder Jack Taylor was in contention to return yesterday until feeling a reaction to his hamstring issue in training on Friday. Sammie Szmodics was left out of the squad altogether after becoming a father for the first time.

“It was an easy decision to leave Sammie out because it was quite simply the right thing to do. His fiance was supposed to give birth last Sunday, but the baby didn’t arrive until 6.20am on Thursday so Sammie had a really emotional week and he’d only trained once since the Luton game.

“Jack felt something on Friday so we didn’t risk him, but Ollie Norburn enjoyed an outstanding debut. You could see why I spent two years trying to sign him.”

Posh assistant manager Mark Robson missed yesterday’s match because of a family bereavement. Under 23 manager Matthew Etherington stood in for him on his 40th birthday.