Peterborough United were well beaten but by a harsh scoreline says Darren Ferguson

Darren Ferguson was disappointed with his side’s decison-making and concentration as they slipped to a 3-0 defeat at Luton Town in their opening Championship match of the season but insisted the scoreline was harsh.
Jonson Clarke-Harris of Peterborough United closes down James Bree of Luton Town.  Photo: Joe Dent/theposh.com.Jonson Clarke-Harris of Peterborough United closes down James Bree of Luton Town.  Photo: Joe Dent/theposh.com.
Jonson Clarke-Harris of Peterborough United closes down James Bree of Luton Town. Photo: Joe Dent/theposh.com.

Posh struggled to cope with a dominant home side who won the match with a first-half goal from Elijah Adebayo and two second-half goals in three minutes from Harry Cornick and Fred Onyedinma.

Ferguson said: “They started the game strongly, but we saw that through and got a bit of control in the game. We just needed to play with a litle bit more belief. “The reason we lost the game today was poor decision-making and a lack of concentration. We made it difficult for ourselves. You can’t give goals like that away in the second half. It’s nothing to do with the level, but the decisions we made. Even the first goal. We’ve got to stop the cross. It’s a foul though, he’s got both hands on my centre half, but sometimes you get and the sometimes you don’t.

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“For the second, Frankie Kent made a terrible mistake and we were punished and three minutes later they put a cross in the box and the boy’s got no-one near him, the wing back hasn’t dealt with it and it’s an easy two goals. Then at that point you’re thinking this could be four or five, but it was never that sort of game.

“So, it’s a disappointing start, disappointing for the fans because we’ve waited a long time for this, it’s a 3-0 scoreline but there was no way it was a 3-0 game.

“There will be no panic though, we know what we’ve got to do. At 1-0 we’re in the game and last season our record from coming from behind was better than anyone in the country. We spoke about that at half-time, but quickly the game just went and you start to think it could be an absolute pasting and it really wasn’t that type of game.

“That’s what can happen though. You are not going to be allowed to make those sort of mistakes and take that extra touch in this league. It is quick and the players know that. Quite a few times we took that extra touch and they were on us and that is going to be the same every week. The best way to put it to the players is: the mistakes we make this season and get punished for is the way we punished teams who made mistakes against us last season.

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“We have to learn from it and very quickly. We are not in this league to lose games 3-0. We’re better than that.

“There were some positives, I though Joe (Tomlinson) did really well in the first half and Joel Randdall did very well when he came on, Clarke-Harris got 90 minutes, which was excellent for him.”