Professional pride accompanied the heartache for Peterborough United players who say thank you to the club's fans for their superb support

But there was also pride in a ‘phenomenal’ season according to star midfielder Hector Kyprianou.

Posh defied most expectations by finishing fourth in League One with the youngest squad in the division and by winning the EFL Trophy Final at Wembley.

But the season ended on a sour note as Posh went down 2-1 on aggregate in a play-off semi-final against an Oxford United side who time-wasted their way to Wembley during Wednesday night’s 1-1 draw at the Weston Homes Stadium.

Josh Knight gave Posh the lead, but Oxford equalised from the penalty spot before the interval and then defended superbly to survive a second-half battering.

“It’s a tough one to take,” Kyprianou told the Posh Plus service. “We fought until the end, but it just wasn’t our day. Josh supplied a great finish to get us in front, but we just got unlucky with the penalty and it was a killer to concede so close to half-time.

"We had started with plenty of energy and kept pushing them back so we knew we didn’t have to change anything in the second-half and we were confident we would get more chances, but we didn’t take them. It was one of those nights. We seemed to be doing all the attacking and they were just hanging on while wasting time.

"But we had a deep chat after the game. We discussed how proud we were of each other. No-one expected us to achieve what we did with the youth of our team and the brand of football we played. We got to the play-offs and we won a trophy so it’s been a phenomenal season and we should be proud of that.

"And we want to say thank you to our fans. They have been our 12th man all season. It was very emotional for the players at the end to see our fans staying behind to clap us of. Their support was second to none and I hope we did them proud.”