Peterborough United manager Darren Ferguson has called for his side to give everything in tonight’s game against Portsmouth, in which anything less than a win would see them miss out on the final League One play-off spot.
An abysmal performance in a 3-0 defeat to relegation candidates Walsall means that Peterborough United must defeat automatic promotion hopefuls Portsmouth at Fratton Park on Tuesday night.
A draw would not mathematically rule Posh out of the play-off fight, but they would have to overturn a 10-goal difference between themselves and Doncaster Rovers on the last day of the season – a feat which would be highly unlikely.
In the last three games, both Posh and Doncaster have had the chance to jump into 6th place, but neither have won a game in their last three. A win for Posh would bring them within one point of Grant McCann’s side, and manager Darren Ferguson wants his side to give nothing less than 100% at Fratton Park.
“There can be no more excuses,” Ferguson told the Peterborough Telegraph.
“I fully expect a performance more fitting of one of my teams and if we don’t win the game I want us to be able to say we gave everything for 90 minutes, that we left nothing behind.
“I hate criticising my players in public, but the performance at Walsall was indefensible. We’ve drawn a line under it now after a meeting with the players this morning and now we have to find a way to win at Portsmouth.
“We’re capable of winning, but we obviously have to improve hugely on what we delivered at the weekend.
“We still have a chance of going up and for some players this might be the only chance they have of getting to the Championship so I expect a reaction to Saturday.
“We’ve taken the season into the final week which hasn’t happened at this club in recent times and now we want to take it into the final day. Doncaster gained a big advantage at the weekend, but if we win tomorrow the pressure reverts back to them.
“We need to return to the level we showed against Sunderland and for the four games before that one. If we do that we have a good chance. There will be a great atmosphere with 20,000 in the ground and a big crowd should act as extra motivation as it did for the Sunderland game.
“It’s the last chance for both clubs to achieve what they want to achieve after 46 games. If we don’t win we won’t be in the play-offs and if Portsmouth don’t win they won’t finish in the automatic promotion places.”
