What would make Peterborough United start signing players in January, shopping in Sweden has been suspended and former targets

Posh and Port Vale are the only two League One clubs yet to make a senior signing in 2026. The only Posh recruit has been winger Ejiro Abbey from Binfield FC, but he has linked up with the club’s Under 21 squad.

Posh chairman Darragh MacAnthony spoke about transfers on the latest edition of his award-winning ‘Hard Truth’ podcast. He revealed there was summer interest in a midfielder now signed by Bradford City and he insists he won’t close the door completely on signings from abroad following the recent departures of Swedish pair Gustav Lindgren and Oscar Wallin after short spells at London Road.

Lindgren has joined Swedish top-flight side BK Hacken for an undisclosed fee, while Wallin retired from professional football at the age of 24.

MacAnthony said: “If the manager wants to do something transfer-wise we will do something, but if he doesn’t we won’t. There is no rush. Even with Gustav gone the manager wants to see Pemi Aderoju, Bolu Shofowoke and JJ Morgan, who is an out and out striker we have been playing in a slightly different role.

"January is a tricky time to do business anyway. I see people saying we should sign a left back for instance, but we have three of them currently injured and Carl Johnston is the fourth. Harley Mills will be back in 4-5 weeks.

"We know the three positions we need to fill, but we can’t get the players out yet as they are involved in promotion races in lower divisions. We have to be calculated in our approach as we can’t afford to overpay.

"We tried to do a deal for Joe White in the summer. He wanted to come and his agent was keen, but his wages were just too high. We hoped Newcastle would help us, but we had back off that deal quite quickly.

"We would have got more money for Gustav if he had stayed in England, but he has wanted to go back to Sweden since last summer and that’s fair enough. We made a bit on Gustav, but we lost a lot on Oscar Wallin who cost us £150k.

"They weren’t bad players and they were both good lads, but they came in at tough times. We will park that transfer market now until we are a division higher, but I’m not completely closing the door on it. One or two bad signings doesn’t mean we go away from something. Next time we will need to see more than one game and some video highlights. We need to watch more games like we do for most players we scout.”

Joe White (23) is an attacking midfielder who joined Bradford City on loan from Newcastle United earlier this month. He spent the first half of the season on loan at Leyton Orient, but started just two matches.

City have also signed defender Harrison Ashby on loan from Newcastle, a player Posh looked at 18 months ago.