‘Frightening’: The forceful message to Portsmouth, Bolton Wanderers, Derby County, Oxford United & Co as promotion rivals flex muscle

Darragh MacAnthony has fired a warning to League One’s promotion contenders as his club hit form.

The Peterborough owner believes his side’s ‘frightening’ attacking options are now showing their worth, as their season accelerates.

Darren Ferguson’s side are now on a run of one loss in 11 in League One - and a single defeat in 16 in 90 minutes across all competitions.

The Posh’s attacking options of Ricky-Jade Jones, Kwame Poku, Ephron Mason-Clark and Joel Randall are fuelling MacAnthony’s optimism, with Jonson Clarke-Harris operating from the bench.

Speaking on The Hard Truth - Inside the Football Industry podcast after Peterborough’s 5-0 win over Cambridge, MacAnthony said: ‘I enjoyed watching how we played and how we just decimated the opposition. It doesn’t matter if it was Cambridge or Blackpool two weeks ago. 

‘I was happy for the players and management team. They’re a young team who played with pride, energy and skill.

‘Listening to their (Cambridge’s) manager talk about us afterwards, you like to hear accolades like that - that’s the best we’ve played, that’s the quickest front line in the league.

‘We have a front four who are frightening when they play together. If the manager picks them every game, they will win 90 per cent of the games.

‘They didn’t play together on Tuesday against Wigan, but were back together on Saturday.

Poku, Ricki, Ephron Mason Clark and Randall - they could go anywhere they want to go. Touch wood they stay fit and together.’

Peterborough overcame Salford in an FA Cup replay after their Cambridge success, but had a rare defeat before that romp against Wigan - a result MacAnthony was not overly concerned about.

He added: ‘We’re playing really well.

‘We lost to Wigan on Tuesday and the best compliment from watching us was Wigan rarely wanted to leave their own half.

‘We really are that team now who are starting to frighten the life out of the opposition. Teams want to just hit us on the break. It’s all about stopping us and not beating us - then we beat ourselves.

‘We dominated the game against Wigan and, fair play, they took their two chances. It was one of them games where you weren’t massively angry, it was just like “we should have won that game comfortably”.

‘It happens with a young team, so it was “let’s see how they respond on Saturday”. The unbeaten won ended on Tuesday, so let’s start another on Saturday.

‘We’re now the joint highest scorers in League One. With the xG this was coming - the goals were coming.

‘We were going to bury some teams and fair play to them all - fair play to the players.’