Peterborough United snatched a point late at Milton Keynes but performance leaves me feeling as flat as if we had lost

Aside from the fact that Posh weren’t beaten, I am struggling to come up with any other positives.

Posh came up against a low on confidence and yet to win MK side in what could hardly be a better chance to pick up a first three points on the road.

I can conceive of no scenario where this will be looked back on a good point as the season progresses. It is far too early to be table watching of course but the fact is, this was 20th vs 21th. The table means nothing after five games other than to show this was two sides who have had very poor starts. The quality of game they then produced only went some way to confirming that survival is about as good as either can hope to achieve this season.

A point is always better than a defeat but the signs I saw at Stadium MK were cause for concern more than encouraging.

Once again, Posh began with a bright 20 minutes.The only real chance that resulted came from a defensive mix-up but Owura Edwards couldn’t release the ball to Harry Leonard quickly enough and by the time he did, the angle had closed. If Edwards can become more accurate at picking out his teammates, Posh will be selling him for mutli-millions.

Keepers get an easy ride

Debutant goalkeeper Will Dennis looked far from convincing in the opening stages but he was hardly given a thorough examination. Posh registered just two shots on target, other than the goal, which I suppose is better than the 0 shots on target Stevenage’s shaky-looking debutant ‘keeper, Daniel Barden, had to deal with last week.

Then, out of nothing in particular, Posh lost control and almost crumbled. The opener goes in with the league’s second top scorer not being picked up in the box and barely a minute later, Alex Bass is flying to his right to deny Dan Crowley as MK cut through again. It was fingertips from being an almost carbon copy of Blackpool.

I don’t think I’ve seen any team work harder with the ball without carrying a goal threat. It’s all well and good patting Posh on the back for a good 20 minutes here and there but if these are followed up by defensive calamities or missed chances, they become completely meaningless.

We have to judge against MK

Promising spells were praised in defeats to Sheffield Wednesday and Blackpool due to expectations they the opponents will be pushing for promotion. Repeat this against the weaker sides and we’ll be absolutely fine was the thinking but that hasn’t been happening.

With the pace they possess, Posh are well set up to hurt teams who want to come at them and leave space. When the weaker sides arrive, they don’t want to come out and leave that space. MK hardly pressed and, like the Stevenage game, Posh struggled to create against one of the so-called weaker sides.

So, we have a side who plays admirably against the big boys and still lose and one that can’t then pick off the weaker ones. Great.

Where’s the entertainment?

This frustration is only compounded by watching a side so devoid of any entertainment and sharing seemingly no DNA with the great attacking sides of the last decades.

This team shouldn’t necessarily be judged based on its predecessors and you can go too far with style of play. Stevenage were an assault on the eyes last season but they made the play-offs. Would their fans change anything about that? Of course not but when you have no entertainment, no goals (Posh are the lowest scorers in the league) and little hope, something must change.

Where will that change come from? Luke Williams is so rigid in his system and will not shift from it. Posh spent £600k on Danny Ormerod and even chasing a game, refuse to play him alongside Leonard.

Bizarre move

Ormerod has looked good off the bench, I was supportive of him coming on, but sticking him on the left wing and leaving him there while Ethan Williams remained an unused sub seemed bizarre.

Surprising post-match comments about this not being out of position for Ormerod don’t help. If Posh want to make it their public position that they spent £600k on a 20-year-old who scored 31 times in the National League North last season, as a striker, with the intention of playing him on the wing, then I’m all ears. Until then, I will continue to doubt it.

Posh have nearly two million pounds worth of striker in the building, yet they are starved service and the chance to play together. How can fans possibly hope to see any change when the manager won’t even consider changing his system even mid-game?

Rigid formation

If the pinnacle of Williams’ tinkering is switching Bolu and Edwards multiple times a game, then we seriously are in trouble. It's always a shoulder-sagging experience to see Bolu sent out to the left where he’s proved multiple times to be ineffectual.

We are getting to the stage now where odd things are starting to happen and rankle. Odd substitutions are happening; another example being making a triple change barely five minutes after half time, odd comments are being made in press conferences and there’s just an all-round lack of inspiration coming from the pitch and the sidelines.

I’m more than happy not to judge this squad on Bradford away or against Sheffield Wednesday but they should be judged against Milton Keynes and Stevenage and I don’t like what I’ve seen.