Peterborough United manager Darren Ferguson insists his team need to win ugly before they can think about entertainment.
There’s no getting away from the fact that it’s been a dreadful opening quarter of the season for Posh. After securing back-to-back play-off campaigns in 2023 and 2024, an 18th-placed finish last term was a major disappointment.
Although they lost a number of key players in the summer, such as Kwame Poku, Ricky-Jade Jones, Hector Kyprianou and Emmanuel Fernandez, they did invest heavily to bolster their squad ahead of the new season. However, it’s clear that the new arrivals failed to gel from the off, with the Cambridgeshire-based side picking up a solitary point from their opening 7 fixtures.
Turning Point Was Short Lived
Peterborough finally got their first win when they beat Wycombe Wanderers 2-1 on September 13th. They followed that a week later with a hard fought 1-0 victory over Plymouth Argyle, but they came crashing down when Lincoln City visited the Weston Home Stadium on September 27th.
The Imps breezed past their division rivals 3-0 in a game which owner Darragh MacAnthony described afterwards as the ‘biggest kick in the b******** I’ve had in a long time’.
Posh suffer a disappointing defeat at the hands of Lincoln City.
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🎩 0-3 🟣 | #pufc pic.twitter.com/R2G4Qp0UDN
— Peterborough United (@theposh) September 27, 2025
A 2-1 loss at Bolton Wanderers followed but Posh face arguably their biggest game of the season so far when they travel to fellow strugglers Burton Albion on Saturday.
Wins More Important Than Entertainment
Speaking ahead of the trip to Staffordshire, Ferguson admitted that it doesn’t matter how his team win, as long as they start getting points on the board:
“If we win 1-0 at Burton people won’t care about entertainment levels. We just need to win games of football. In the position we are in we can’t keep waiting so it has to happen now.
“We had a really hard start to the season with the teams we had to play against and with the results we had it became difficult to play eye-catching, fluent football as players naturally lost some confidence.
“We then built a new team and Huddersfield, who were fourth at the time, couldn’t lay a glove on us for half a game. We then beat Wycombe and ground out a different sort of win at Plymouth which was great. The Lincoln game set us back a bit and then we lost a game of fine margins at Bolton.
“We haven’t been good enough in both boxes, but as I told the chairman after the Bolton game I am confident better results are around the corner. I told him we would go a run soon.”
📺 Darren Ferguson spoke to Posh+ ahead of this weekend’s clash with Burton Albion, discussing the fixture, international call-ups, Bolu Shofowoke’s new deal and Lucca Mendonca.
Pre-match interview brought to you by @BigMotoringWrld.#pufc
— Peterborough United (@theposh) October 16, 2025
“It’s a tough game for us at Burton though. They are very well organised, very hard working and they all know what they are doing. We must make sure we start well and deal with everything that is thrown at us. We need to get the basics right and then try and get control of the game.
“I’ve watched Burton’s last three games. They shouldn’t have won at Cardiff, but they did. They drew at Doncaster when they should have won as they were very good in the second half and then they beat Bolton although 3-0 flattered them.”
Writer’s View
This weekend feels like a real defining moment in Peterborough’s season. Burton are a team that have enjoyed some decent form recently but they will be struggling towards the bottom end of the table come May.
Although there is still a lot of football left to be played, there’s no escaping the fact that Posh need to start getting some points on the board. The trip to the Pirelli Stadium represents a great opportunity to do just that, even if it is by the skin of their teeth.
