Darren Ferguson ‘felt it coming’ as Peterborough hammer Charlton

Manager Darren Ferguson always felt Peterborough had the performance they produced in victory over Charlton in them as they took a big step towards staying in Sky Bet League One.

Posh have underperformed for much of the season but are now eight games unbeaten in all competitions and nine points clear of the relegation zone after defeating the fourth-placed Addicks.

The match at the Weston Homes Stadium turned on Charlton goalkeeper Will Mannion handling Kayne Ramsay’s backpass as Peterborough opened the scoring very shortly after and controlled proceedings from that point onwards.

Ferguson said: “We missed some unbelievable chances at 2-0, clear-cut chances. Once we got the third we got through it quite comfortably, but I was just praying we didn’t pay for the misses.

“It was an important performance. I felt it coming.

“I felt if we got things right in possession, which we did a lot of work on because they’re so aggressive, and beat the press then we’d have too much pace for them, and that’s how it turned out.

“No one could argue after about 60 minutes we could have been 5-0 up.

“We missed three unbelievable chances and when you don’t take them, against a team like that who are throwing the ball into the box and have some real quality in their team…

“But I think in the main we dealt with them well and the players should take a lot of credit for that performance, but I’ve felt it coming.”

Peterborough led after 38 minutes when Charlton defended the free-kick conceded by Mannion but Kwame Poku recycled the ball for centre-back Sam Hughes to head in.

Abraham Odoh doubled the advantage by rounding off a swift counter and after several missed chances, Malik Mothersille made the game safe for the Posh by converting Cian Hayes’ ball across.

Charlton boss Nathan Jones, whose side are eight points behind second-placed Wrexham, said: “It’s a backpass, the referee’s made the correct decision.

“We’ve just got to clear that. Clear it, defend your box and there’s no problem.

“Then from a (Charlton) corner they leave three up, we weren’t aggressive enough on the first ball and then they get in (for the second goal), and that’s stuff we work on.

“When you go asleep against these, they can carve you open because they have got real good players – they’ve got a very, very good front four.

“We didn’t handle that and we didn’t show enough quality in the final third so it’s all about us, really, in terms of what we do.

“We can give them credit for the way their attacking players played, but for us, in terms of our attacking threat today, we needed to be better.

“Sometimes you get punched on the nose and it’s about how you react.”