Peterborough chairman's League One warning to Portsmouth, Oxford, Bolton, Barnsley & Co

Peterborough chairman and co-owner Darragh MacAnthony, left, with Barry FryPeterborough chairman and co-owner Darragh MacAnthony, left, with Barry Fry
Peterborough chairman and co-owner Darragh MacAnthony, left, with Barry Fry | Getty Images
The chairman of Pompey rivals Peterborough believes his side are finally clicking and ready to boost their promotion push

Darragh MacAnthony believes Pompey and the rest of the League One promotion-chasing pack need to watch out.

The Peterborough chairman and co-owner is of the opinion that Posh’s summer overhaul and change in playing philosophy is starting to pay off massively - and that their best days are still ahead of them this term.

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Last season’s beaten play-off semi-finalists parted company with many established players in the close season - including former Pompey trio Nathan Thompson, Ben Thompson and Dan Butler. In their place came the likes of Romoney Crichlow, Peter Kioso and Archie Collins as Darren Ferguson looked to lower the age of his squad and try something different in terms of playing style.

Pompey inflicted a third defeat of the League One season on Posh back on September 2 - a loss that left the London Road side 13th in the table.

Since then, though, Peterborough are unbeaten in nine games, with important back-to-back away wins at Port Vale and Blackpool respectively their most recent statements of intent.

Posh, who now sit fourth in the standings, are seven points behind John Mousinho’s current table-toppers. But with two thirds of the season remaining, MacAnthony is predicting bigger and better things from his side between now and the end of the season - putting the Blues, Oxford, Bolton, Barnsley & Co on alert.

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Speaking on the latest episode of his The Hard Truth Podcast, the Irishman said: ‘Not many teams are going to go to Blackpool and A. Play them off the pitch, like we did for an hour. B. Score four goals and C. Walk out with three points.

‘It’s not going to happen for a lot of teams, that’s how good they are.

‘They’re going to be up there, a really good team. We went there and I loved it. I loved the performance, I loved the first half. We missed a penalty but we were very good.

‘And the age of our team on Tuesday (at Port Vale) and Saturday was 22.3 years old. That’s how young we were and, again, nobody’s is going to give us credit, nobody is going to write about it.

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‘But the things we’re doing, after what happened against Sheffield Wednesday (in the play-off semi-final) and the hangover that most clubs would have had, I feel what we’ve done - reloading, retooling, going back over our philosophy, changing lots of things (is working).

‘There’s a long way to go, it’s still early days and I’ve said this for weeks that it’s going to be good, it’s going to be bad,  it’s going to be good, it’s going to be bad. But, eventually, two things are going to happen. This young team is going to learn how to win tough games. Eventually they’re going to score a lot of goals against a team and a good team. And eventually they’re going to go on a winning run, they’re going to bash a lot of teams.

'They will still have inconsistencies because they are still a young team, but we as a club, everything we wanted, we’re slowly ticking the boxes.’

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