Why Peterborough United manager is planning an all-out attacking assault on Bolton Wanderers
Peterborough United boss Darren Ferguson has challenged his team to replicate Tuesday’s exuberant, exciting performance on a regular basis.
Posh dismantled Blackpool 5-1 at the Weston Homes Stadium with all four forward players – Joel Randall, Kwame Poku, Malik Mothersille and Ricky-Jade Jones – hitting the target. The size of the win kept Posh out in front of the League One goalscoring charts – a chart they topped last season – with 25 goals in their first 13 matches.
Some dodgy defending has undermined that free-scoring form, but Ferguson seems resigned to conceding goals until he has a fully fit squad to pick from.
"We might need to suffer in that respect for a while,” Ferguson admitted. “Our best form of defence will be to attack. We will just have to try and outscore the opposition which to be fair is not much different to what I’ve always done. I was actually very pleased with how we controlled the game against Blackpool once we went 3-1 up, but before then it had been a bit open.
"Blackpool came to try and outscore us which was never likely to happen as they don’t have our quality in attack. They played 4-2-4 at times against us which gave us far too much space and we shouldn’t expect that to happen again.
"But that game did remind the players how good they can be when it all comes together. When we are at it we can beat anyone and not many teams in League One can say that. The challenge is to perform like we did consistently. Teams will watch us and prepare accordingly, but they will all be wary of our pace. When we play at speed and our passing is accurate like it was on Tuesday we are very hard to stop.
"We will however have to get everything spot on at Bolton. We will need to be very good at certain things on and off the ball or it will become a very difficult afternoon. Like us they probably don’t have the points they would have wanted yet, but I would expect they will be there or thereabouts at the end of the season. They have a very good squad with lots of quality and a manager who is now very experienced. It’s always a tough game up there and Saturday will be no exception.
"They haven’t changed much from last season. They tend to play in the same way, although they changed for the game at Birmingham on Tuesday. That was understandable as they were playing what is effectively a Championship side.”
Posh are currently 12th with 18 points after winning and losing five League One games so far. Bolton’s 2-0 defeat Birmingham on Tuesday left them in 14th, a point behind Posh, but with two games in hand.