Evans pleased to see Posh hold on after ‘mixed performance’

Posted Sunday, October 28, 2018 by PA

Peterborough boss Steve Evans was pleased to see both sides of his promotion-chasing side as a 2-1 victory at Burton saw them close to within two points of leaders Portsmouth.

Midfielder Joe Ward’s deflected opener after 29 minutes had the visitors in front before Siriki Dembele’s finish at the end of a swift counter-attack from a Burton corner doubled Posh’s advantage just before the hour.

Albion quickly halved the deficit through Jamie Allen but it was not enough to prevent the visitors from maintaining their impressive unbeaten away run in Sky Bet League One.

Evans said: “We showed two sides to our game today.

“For the first 60 minutes or so we are so much in control the only question being why it took us so long to get the second goal. It’s a brilliant breakaway goal involving Wardy and Siriki but then we go and give a silly goal away.

“We know Chappy (goalkeeper Aaron Chapman) should do better but where are our players following in?

“Then we had to show a different side to our game. This is a difficult place to come. It is a team full of players with Championship experience that have beaten the likes of Sunderland and Doncaster who are right up there.

“Even though Burton had a lot of the play I thought that if we broke again we could score like we did with the second but all credit to the players, it was a mixed performance.

“One of outstanding pleasure for the first hour and then we had to dig in backed by our phenomenal support.”

Burton boss Nigel Clough was left to rue his side’s slow start to the game, which came on the back of two lengthy away trips in the last week.

“Once we got going after 20 minutes or so and we looked like we had got off the coach it was one-way traffic and we played some excellent stuff,” he said.

“We are very disappointed in the two goals we conceded. The first one takes a deflection off Kyle McFadzean’s back and you can’t do anything about that.

“The second one is a terrible pass that got cut out and they go on and score. We said to the players at half-time, don’t get caught on the break, don’t concede the second and we will get something out of the game.”

It was just as Albion had shaken off their apparent lethargy that Peterborough struck but Clough was still happy with the majority of his side’s performance against one of the strong contenders for promotion to the Championship.

“After the 25-minute mark we started knocking it around and the pattern was set for the rest of the game.

“They were camped on the edge of their box for long periods of the game. Despite us creating enough chances to win a couple of games today we couldn’t quite finish them.

“Peterborough got the two-goal lead and then dropped off a bit. Being second in the league they were confident they could defend it but we penned them in and played some good stuff.”