What good will Darren Ferguson's blistering post-match rant do for Peterborough United?

Ironically for a man who doesn’t do social media, and for a manager whose criticism is usually pretty measured, he delivered the sort of post-match, heat-of-the-moment rant which is normally the preserve of the frustrated fan on social media.

One who had just seen a full strength side fail to take advantage of 70 minutes of clear superiority against weakened League Two opposition before collapsing in a shambolic heap with the coup de grace delivered by his bete noire, in this instance easy-to-dislike goalkeeper Christy Pym.

Fergie rant

Ferguson’s language was peculiar. Here he was labelling his side ‘bottlers’ while invoking the spectre of Hillsborough, a shocking capitulation in front of 31,000, and a far more damaging defeat than a third round Carabao Cup at Mansfield Town watched by under 5,000.

That play-off semi-final loss at Sheffield Wednesday persuaded Posh to try and build a younger, more dynamic squad for the current campaign. The fanbase was asked to buy into this shift in policy by showing patience and understanding towards a squad likely to show inconsistency and to be far from error free.

The manager, along with his chairman, have consistently delivered that message. Both would have been understandably irritated by what they saw last night as a place in the last 16, and the possibility of a lucrative tie, was chucked away by panicking, plot-losing players, who to be fair appeared to receive little help from the sidelines.

But only Ferguson, apparently forgetting his own pre-season pleas, went public (so far) and delivered a devastating critique of an exciting 2-2 draw and a subsequent 3-1 penalty shootout defeat in which Pym excelled, right in front of almost 700 Posh fans who had taunted him mercilessly, including one amusing ditty involving Warwick Davis.

What good the managerial rant will do will be seen on Saturday – and Ferguson knows the players better than anyone – when a Bristol Rovers side, who will have noted a failure to compete when the game became physical, are at the Weston Homes Stadium.

One assumes Ferguson is hoping his players will react to a verbal kicking by delivering far more aggression alongside their obvious quality, but they could easily go the other way and play some scared football. The manager effectively hung his team out to dry with potentially demoralising words, although talk of him losing the dressing room (seen on Twitter of course) is very premature.

Ferguson suggested he should have cleared the entire squad out after Hillsborough, although Posh doing better without Ronnie Edwards, Jonson Clarke-Harris, Hector Kyprianou and Kwame Poku, all survivors from last season, is difficult to imagine.

He also appeared to suggest the players didn’t deserve his management which came over more arrogantly than he probably wished. It wouldn’t be the greatest surprise to see an attempt at reconciliation in his pre-match press conference later this week.

Stripped of the more emotive terminology, Ferguson’s post-match words were generally accurate. As soon as Mansfield, a team unbeaten in all competitions this season, had 11 first-team regulars on the pitch, Posh wilted. They didn’t win any tackles and they stopped passing to each other. Their defending became desperate against a team of limited talent, but plenty of heart and fight.

And yet it should never have come to that. Posh were so obviously superior after conceding an early goal from a penalty they should have been out of sight before the Stags stirred into action, but some outstanding play between the two penalty areas was again ruined by some poor decision-making, crossing and finishing which kept the hosts in the game after two Jonson Clarke-Harris strikes had given Ferguson’s men a 2-1 lead.

The obvious targetting of the Posh left-back position wasn’t addressed until the 89th minute. Posh made one change in personnel and a couple of positonal switches 15 minutes before then which neutered the threat of the dangerous Poku.

This was ultimately a collective, and very avodiable, failure.