Peterborough United owner Darragh MacAnthony refuses to accept criticism of 'terrible' summer recruitment

With Posh only securing their safety on Tuesday night against Mansfield, many obituaries of the Posh season have already begun to be written with many fans placing part of the blame on the summer recruitment.

Posh lost the likes of Kwame Poku, Hector Kyprianou, Ricky-Jade Jones, Emmanuel Fernandez, Tayo Edun and Malik Mothersille in the summer and signed a total of 16 players both on loan and permanently.

Speaking on his Hard Truth podcast, MacAnthony has been keen to point to the success of many of these, notable names that spring to mind include: Alex Bass, David Okagbue, Tom Lees, Matt Garbett, Harry Leonard, Kyrell Lisbie and Jimmy-Jay Morgan.

He insisted that he would not accept much of the harsh criticism of the summer window as many players will improve further in their second year but would concede that the previous summer was ‘terrible.’

MacAnthony did not name names but among the players signed in that window that have widely been deemed failures were: Abraham Odoh, Chris Conn-Clarke, George Nevett, Cian Hayes, Jack Sparkes, Oscar Wallin, Brad Ihionvien and Gustav Lindgren.

He said: “I’m still excited about some of the players that will develop in year two. I 100% agree that the recruitment last year was terrible. The recruitment was not good. It didn’t work for us at the time and it didn’t gel.

“Before our fans criticise the recruitment this year, go through the list- there’s probably 15 or 16- there’s probably only four of them maximum you'd go back in time and not want them.

“We have signed some really, really good players this year. Even the loan players who had injury issues, they were good players and it was the right decision to recruit them.

"75% of the recruitment class, which is way above average, have been really good.

“A lot of the players will be miles better in year two. Ben Woods and Brandon Khela can be top, top League One players. Lisbie and Leonard have had unbelievable seasons. Young David at the back is another one and we already have one of the best goalies in the league.

“We have players that we can build around. What we now need to do is bring in characters. Of course we have our young and hungry policy but we need two or three characters, they can be 25 or 35. With the right people leading our nucleus, we will be miles better.

“We need players that can play 40-60 games a year. We are changing a lot of things.

“Three years ago, I had the most durable team. Harrison Burrows and Ronnie Edwards played 65 games and were playing through issues.

"We will do everything in our power to fix all the issues. There is nothing that can’t be fixed. and there’s nothing that says we can’t rise again. We’ve done it so many times.”