The 'Fab Four' are back together so automatic promotion is still very much on for Peterborough United

Posh have slipped off top-two pace after three League One defeats in a row, the last of which was a 5-2 shocker at Wycombe last weekend. They are now seven points adrift of second placed Derby County.

But MacAnthony is backing his team to come good again, especially as star wingers Kwame Poku and Ephron Mason-Clark have returned to fitness ready to re-unite with the other members of the ‘fab four’ forwards, Joel Randall and Ricky-Jade Jones. Even the disappointment of Tuesday’s postponed home game with Port Vale came with a silver lining, according to the chairman.

"Obviously the postponement was frustrating,” MacAnthony admitted on the latest edition of his ‘Hard Truth’ podcast. “But it has given Kwame and Ephron the chance to rest their aching bones for a few extra days. There would have been changes for the Vale game to give some players a rest, but Kwame was playing.

"It’s still been a fabulous season for us. We’ve just had a shocking seven days which can happen. In fact in every promotion season we’ve had there has been a sticky patch and we just need to clean little things up.

"We lost to Wigan and we shouldn’t have done and we lost at Exeter when we shouldn’t have done. Across those two games we had 50-odd shots. We weren’t ourselves at Wycombe without the best two wingers in League One. We went away from our formation for a game and it didn’t work, but we can’t keep looking back because there is so much good going on.

"All I would ask is of the team is to be ‘us’. I’m all-in on this season because I love this team and I love watching them play. We have the best front four in the EFL and we’ve only been beaten once when they’ve all started, in their first game together at Portsmouth. If those four play every game we win 90% of them.

“I saw some comments saying autos are gone now, but that’s not the case. There are 15 games to go and the chase is on.”

Posh strengthened their squad with the signing of free agent right-back Vontae Daley-Campbell on Wednesday, but MacAnthony also leapt to the defence of Jadel Katongo who has occupied the position since on-loan star Peter Kioso returned to Rotherham.

The new right-back

“Jadel has played a couple of times with Kwame in front of him and we won them both,” MacAnthony added. “Not signing a right-back has had nothing to do with the last three results. We had 50-odd shots in two of the games so how can it have been a right-back problem?

"Anyway we have signed one now. The lad has a pedigree, but it hasn’t worked out for him at a couple of clubs for whatever reason, but we’ve took a punt on him until the end of the season.

"He needs a couple of games in the under 21s to get up to speed and then we’ll see. We’ve given him a chance and if it comes off we can talk again in the summer.”