Peterborough United’s embarrassing defensive record demands a different approach, the wrong man was taken off, falling foul of Premier League strikers and the good and bad of Championship football

That’s one way of describing it. ‘Shambolic’ and ‘embarrassing’ were other possible descriptions. Posh have only ever conceded so many goals in a complete season on two previous occasions in their 62 yeear Football League history and the team that conceded the most (82 in 1961-62) scored 107 goals themselves so they can be excused.

McCann likes to field three centre-backs presumably to make his team hard to break down. It isn’t working. McCann has been in charge of seven Championship games and now and used the same formation to start every one of them. Posh have conceded 17 goals in those matches with 12 of them arriving in four home outings - three per game - an average Boro could have matched in the first 45 minutes yesterday with better finishing. Posh won their previous game 3-1 at QPR, but could have been 3-0 down before equalising at Loftus Road and going on to deliver their most successful away display of the campaign.

Most Championship teams play the same formation, but they are much better at it than Posh as they have better players. It probably won’t happen, but it might be time for a different plan.

OTHER TALKING POINTS...

1) The absence of defenders Ronnie Edwards (Covid) and Mark Beevers (personal reasons) gave McCann the perfect opportunity to ditch the three centre-back system, but as the team had trained with this formation all week one supposes he felt he needed to stick with it. Emmanuel Fernandez was therefore the next cab on the rank and it shouldn’t have surprised anyone that he found the pace too fierce once a slick Middlesbrough side found their stride. Fernandez, who was only called up on the morning of the game when Beevers dropped out, enjoyed some good moments on the ball and he can obviously see and pick out a pass better than some of his more advanced teammates, but he looked unsure when forced to defend. Would it have been better to switch to four at the back and reinforce the midfield by fielding Reece Brown alongside Jeando Fuchs? We’ll never know now, but a change of shape would at least have surprised Boro manager Chris Wilder.

2) Fuchs is clearly already a crowd-pleaser. He plays with great energy and wins possession regularly, but he also loses it regularly as well. He can be forgiven on many occasions though as he looks up and sees nothing in front of him because of the way Posh set up when out of possession.

3) It was assumed by press box dwellers that Jonson Clarke-Harris had picked up a knock forcing his half-time withdrawal in favour of Ricky-Jade Jones. But no, it was tactical and it backfired badly. The logic of using the pace of Jones to exploit space left behind by a team who like to send defenders flying forward was reasonable, but sacrificing Clarke-Harris made little sense. He was making life uncomfortable for the visiting backline and in the five minutes before the break he set up a great chance for Sammie Szmodics and almost scored himself. After his departure Posh had no-one to hold the ball by competing physically up meaning flaky goalkeeper Joe Lumley had an easy afternoon, most of which was spent wasting time.

4) Home form was supposed to keep Posh up, but the last win at London Road in a Championship match arrived on December 11. It’s now eight matches without a win and none since Siriki Dembele, scorer of a dazzling individual goal for Bournemouth yesterday, was allowed to leave.

5) Middlesbrough were great to watch in the first-half. Unlike many teams at Championship level who have beaten Posh by being better organised, strong at set-pieces and physically superior, Boro outclassed their hosts with excellent movement, speed and quality passing. It helps though that they managed to sign two Premier League strikers in Aaron Connolly (Brighton) and Folarin Balogan (Arsenal) on loan in January, while Posh were borrowing, and then ignoring, West Bromwich Albion reserve striker Callum Morton.

6) The atmopsheres at Championship will be greatly missed in the press box. The Boro fans (almost 4,000 of them) were excellent yesterday. The plentiful radio coverage of visiting clubs won’t be missed though. Their post-match debriefs usually centre around how poored Posh had played and the most annoying thing about that is they are usually right.