Peterborough United manager was reminded of recent glory days by the desire for victory shown on and off the pitch in 2-1 win over Rotherham United

Posh played some quality football at a fast tempo to knock the Millers off the top of the table and received outstanding support from the home crowd as they did it.

It all felt like 2009 or 2011 to Ferguson who masterminded successful League One promotion in those years. Back-to-back home wins over the teams who started the week as the top two in the table has catapulted Posh up five places to fifth ahead of away games at Accrington Stanley on Tuesday (January 28) and new leaders Ipswich Town on Saturday, February 1.

Early goals from top scorer Ivan Toney, who now has 20 for the season in all competitions, and a first for the club for on-loan Sammie Szmodics, ultimately secured the win,

“The desire the players showed to get a vital win and the backing they received from the fans was just like the good old days,” Ferguson ethused.

“That desire on and off the pitch is what I will take from this game, along with two quality goals and some excellent defending from our team.

“I felt going into it, that this was a must-win game for us. If we’d lost Rotherham would have been 10 points ahead of us and that’s too much. Now we are only four points behind themand if we finish anywhere near Rotherham we will be close to going up as they will definitely be there or thereabouts.

“You know what you are going to get from Rotherham. They are big and strong and they load balls into the penalty area whenever they can. You have to stand up to them to have any chance and we did that.

“They blew us away at their place, but the three new loan signings and the return of Nathan Thompson, Josh Knight and Siriki Dembele is massive for us.

“We are a different side now. To beat the top two in successive matches is a great effort. And we deserved to beat them both. The last few minutes was like the Alamo, but I can only remember Christy Pym making one good save.

“You could see the confidence had flooded back into the team after the Wycombe win, but we had to back it up to get some momentum, and now we have to back it up again by going on a winning run as we’ve played more games than most teams.

“It’s been an outstanding response to a poor run of form. The two goals were excellent. Siriki’s pace created the first and it was a great finish by Ivan and the second one was high quality involving a number of players and a superb finish from Sammie.”

Posh had picked up two points and scored just one goal in the six League One matches before the Wycombe match.

Posh now have 50 League One goals this season.

Rotherham had won their previous five League One matches.