Peterborough United's immediate future is in the hands of men with tarnished recruitment reputations - can they deliver?

It’s not an over-reaction, even after just 6 League One games, to believe decisions made before the transfer window shuts at 7pm on Monday will determine the club’s League One fate this season.

Posh deserve to be bottom of the table and they will stay there unless Darragh MacAnthony, Darren Ferguson and Barry Fry can work some magic. They have done so in the not-too-distant past, but sadly all the recent evidence – Matthew Garbett aside – suggests it’s unlikely to happen right now, but we live in hope.

In less than 18 months Posh have been transformed from a high-class squad with potent attackers, quality midfielders and gifted defenders into, well a misfiring mess frankly, one capable of getting played off the park and losing 3-0 at Exeter City, a team that punches above their natural weight at League One level.

Posh, and a loyal band of fans which will likely dwindle quickly, are paying the price for dreadful recruitment in the summer of 2024 and an alarmingly casual retained list at the end of last season. Please remember this rapid malaise didn’t start this season. Posh ended the last League One campaign in 18th place without winning any of their last seven matches and yet only four players were made available for transfer and three of them – Nick Bilokapic, Jacob Wakeling and Brad Ihionvien – are still here.

It’s to their credit, even if some of the accompanying explanations don’t make a lot of sense, the Posh hierarchy appear to have realised the error of their ways, but unless, as a minimum, a defender with pace as well as strength and a forward with presence as well as skill, arrive it will be too little too late.

POSH TRANSFER TALKING POINTS…

1) The Ihionvien situation is the perfect example of the muddled thinking at Posh. The striker was a surprise signing from Colchester 12 months ago in the first place with no record of success at League Two level. We were told in April he didn’t fit in at the club and would be leaving. In July he’d apparently been forgiven and was playing in Posh pre-season friendlies and scoring against weak opponents. At the start of August he started the first four League One matches. At the end of August he’s now leaving again. Ihionvien isn’t yet good enough so from a playing point of view he won’t be mourned for long, but his 12 months at London Road is a perfect illustration of a club that has badly lost its way.

2) Ihionvien’s departure presumably suggests Posh have a striker lined up to come in. For some illogical reason Posh went into a League One season with two strikers with one third tier career goal between them. The consequences have been predictable. A penalty has boosted that less than formidable tally to 2 goals. Posh have now been strongly linked with Blackburn Rovers striker Harry Leonard and a fee of £1 million has been suggested by someone with strong links to the Championship club. If true it seems a remarkable fee for a player with 11 senior starts and 5 goals to his name. It baffled me at the time when club bosses started talking about bidding aggressively and repeatedly for players in the current transfer window. The words might have played well to a frustrated fanbase, but it also appeared to be an open invitation for selling clubs to hike up asking prices.

3) Posh have had many reasons to be grateful to MacAnthony in his near 20 years at the club and he retains enough silver-tongued persuasion to convince some he can deliver success again. This is a man who speaks openly and entertainingly enough to secure regular bookings on Sky Sports to discuss football even when his side have started a second year of struggle. I’d never suggest the chairman stays silent – the stories would dry up for a start – but he is saying things that can come back to haunt him. ‘Posh will be a different animal at the end of the transfer window’ is a recent one. Two days before that window closes Posh have just delivered their worst display of the season despite starting three recent signings for the first time.

4) MacAnthony did break his silence, sort of, on the Leonard speculation. ‘Don’t believe anything you read on social media from now till Monday. It's silly season,’ he stated on X without denying the story had legs. Blackburn are expected to sign a striker soon – Andri Gudjohnsen, the son of former Chelsea star Eidur – which could ease Leonard’s exit from Ewood Park, but one would imagine persuading players to come to London Road gets more difficult with each dismal result. Money usually talks so let’s hope Posh have enough, if not for Leonard than for others.

5) Presumably Ferguson is having a say in recruitment which presumably means he is set to stay. He needs to rediscover the powers of motivation and organisation which made him the most successful manager in Posh history pretty quickly though. He seems wedded to a system which relies on quality wingers and yet he has none who are consistent, experienced or, plainly, good enough to deliver. Abraham Odoh’s continued selection has become a concern. There’s a whiff of the current Manchester United manager’s stubbornness in sticking to a formation which plainly isn’t working because the players in key positions aren’t good enough. He said after yesterday’s game that creating hardly any scoring chances ‘isn’t like us’ which is clearly not the case this season and it won’t change while the current personnel are all he has.

6) Posh are just 3 points off 18th place despite their horrible start to the season. But the lack of scoring chances and shots on goal, never mind actual goals and wins, means that gap will only grow.