What Darren Ferguson had to say about Portsmouth following Peterborough draw

The Posh boss was of the opinion in his post-match interviews that his players were primed to go on and win the game, after Mo Eisa’s 72nd-minute header saw him join team-mate Ivan Toney and Blues duo Lee Brown and Ellis Harrison on the scoresheet.

The match, however, ended in a 2-2 draw as neither enjoyed the satisfaction of delivering a late killer blow to a promotion rival.

Yet that didn’t stop Ferguson exuding pride in his troops at the final whistle, with the London Road manager saying his much-depleted side were the better of the two teams on display.

Ferguson said: ‘At 2-2 I thought we were going to win it - I really did, I thought we had them on the ropes.

‘Our reaction to going 2-1 down was outstanding.

‘I said to the players in the team talk, just make sure I can come off the pitch and say I'm proud to be the manager of that team – and I can't ask any more from my players.

‘I thought they were excellent, great effort. I'm absolutely delighted.

‘When you go 2-1 behind here (Fratton Park), it can be hard.

‘We always knew that whenever you play here there's always a period in the game when they'll get 10-15 minutes, especially when they're shooting towards that goal (the Fratton End), they suck it towards the goal - and that's when we needed to stay strong and see it through.

‘And at 2-1 I was a little bit like that, we saw it through.

‘But then when we got the equaliser, I thought we were the better team.

‘To a man, I was delighted with the players.’

The draw sees Peterborough stay third in the League One table – but eight points behind leaders Wycombe, who didn’t play on Saturday.

Pompey remain 10th – three points outside the play-offs but with a game in hand on five of the teams above them in the standings.