Will a mid-season purge save Peterborough United? Is selling Joel Randall a risk? And the points tally needed to ensure relegation is avoided
Peterborough United seem intent on a mid-season purge of an under-achieving squad.
Joel Randall looks set to be sold to League One rivals Bolton Wanderers, left-back Jack Sparkes knows he is unwanted after less than 30 appearances for the club and experienced goalkeeper Jed Steer is rumoured to be on his way as well. Freeing up salary cap space to revive an ailing squad has become essential.
In the case of Randall it’s a bold move as he’s a proven performer at League One level. There are few, if any, number 10s at this level with his ability to sniff out space and link the attacks between midfield and forward players, but many won’t be mourning his departure, especially those who like their players to get stuck in and make the fact they are up for a fight more obvious.
Whether or not the strategy works will depend on the quality of replacement that arrives, and the ability of manager Darren Ferguson and his coaching team to organise and get the best out of them. One newboy is already here and Carl Johnston was solid on debut as a right wing-back on Saturday.
But defeat at Wrexham on Saturday has left Posh just two places above the relegation zone. They haven’t played in League Two since the promotion season of 2007-08 – the first full campaign under Ferguson and chairman Darragh MacAnthony.
TALKING POINTS FROM WREXHAM 1, POSH 0…
1) In an understandable attempt to shore up the leakiest defence in League One, Posh appear to have neutered their own strengths – the pace out wide of their attacking players which carried them for the first 20 games of the season. Playing three centre-backs and a pair of wing-backs has lessened the impact of Malik Mothersille and Ricky-Jade Jones and forced Cian Hayes off the right wing, where he was excelling, to an unfamiliar left wing-back role. Hayes has done okay there, but one assumes the attempt to get Sparkes out of the building means a specialist on that side of the defence is incoming. Wing-backs don’t tend to get to the byline as frequently as wingers like Mothersille and Kwame Poku which means crosses tend to come from deeper into strikers whose aerial ability is negligible. No Posh player could have scored the goal Steven Fletcher bagged for Wrexham yesterday. Hayes got to the byline once yesterday and it should have led to a goal for Chris Conn-Clarke.
2) Posh apparently paid £500k for striker Gustav Lindgren. He had reportedly been flying in training since linking up with his new team a few weeks back. He was available for the first time at Wrexham and yet he didn’t even make the matchday squad. Ferguson did explain why after the game, but in a team suddenly struggling for goals it was a surprise to see such an expensive purchase held back. Without wingers Posh have no ‘out’ balls as Jones’ hold-up play has become weak in recent games.
3) Carl Johnston did okay for a player who had only met his new teammates the day before the game. He stuck to his task defensively as a wing-back, but showed little attacking dash even though Posh had plenty of possession, especially in the first-half. Johnston will presumably be an improvement on what we’ve seen before on the right-hand side of a poor defence this season which is a start.
4) Oscar Wallin and Emmanuel Fernandez performed well in defence yesterday, but Wrexham’s starting forwards Ollie Palmer and Paul Mullin are limited at League One level. In fact Wrexham boss Phil Parkinson, who celebrated his 1,000th game as a boss yesterday, must be a managerial genius to keep this squad so high in the table. They showed little pace and little creativity against Posh, although they were without their two most potent players in Elliot Lee and Ryan Barnett, another reason why this was a chance missed for Darren Ferguson’s side.
5) Another 26 points from 22 games would probably see Posh safe from relegation. In fact based on the last four League One seasons Posh would needed even fewer. Over the last 10 seasons the average points total of the team finishing fourth from bottom, in the last relegation place, is 46.6. In the last four seasons that figure drops to 44 points. Fleetwood survived with 40 points in the 2021-22 season.
Plymouth (2018-19) and Oldham (2017-18) were both relegated with 50 points. Notts County and Crawley both went down with 50 points in the 2014-15 season. No team has been relegated from League One with more than 50 points since the 2004-05 season when Torquay United dropped with 51 points. Posh (39 points) were also relegated that season.
Posh, who have 25 points from 24 games this season, were relegated with a record number of points (54) from the Championship in the 2012-13 season.