‘Good team - but we had chances to beat Portsmouth’: Peterborough chairman on Fratton defeat

But the Irishman praised the quality and experience of John Mousinho’s side following their 3-1 defeat at Fratton Park last weekend.

And he acknowledged it was Pompey who eventually ran out worthy victors.

Peterborough gave up a first-half advantage in front of a crowd of 17.814, as the Blues ruthlessly hit back through Colby Bishop, Abu Kamara and Regan Poole.

It means the Posh have picked up nine points from their first six games to sit 13th in the formative League One table.

MacAnthony isn’t concerned about that, though, and feels Darren Ferguson’s young side have a lot to look forward to this season.

He said in his The Hard Truth - Inside the Football Industry podcast: ‘I think we’re going to have a really good season.

‘It will take us time, but we started well.

‘We’ve had a really tough opening.

‘We played five away games between cup and league - that wasn’t kind to us.

‘We played some big teams - good teams, good established teams.

‘Portsmouth are a good team, very good experience in there - Derby the same - but we had enough chances to win both games.

‘But both teams who beat us deserved to beat us - we made mistakes.’

A big error from Romoney Crichlow contributed to Pompey’s second goal from Kamara, as the defender made a hash of his clearance - gifting the Norwich loanee the opening to score from close range.

MacAnthony stated he was comfortable with what is a fairly young group of players making such errors, but it has to contribute to their education.

He added: ‘I’m not going to be critical of Romoney - we saw the mistake. Not a problem, it’s going to happen - but we have to learn.

‘We have a really exciting squad. It’s going to take us a while to really purr and there will be some inconsistencies while we iron that out - but I’m very, very excited.’