‘They’re lucky…by far the better team’: Darren Ferguson’s outspoken view as Peterborough United toppled by Portsmouth

Pompey were ‘lucky’ to win against a far superior team in the League One promotion battle at London Road.

And anyone connected with the Blues who disagrees with that assessment are ‘kidding themselves’, according to Posh manager Darren Ferguson.

Ferguson gave a forthright assessment of the crackling end-to-end encounter, in which his team saw a six-game winning run end in the 1-0 success for John Mousinho’s men.

Peterborough more than played their part in an entertaining affair but could only manage one shot on target in 90 minutes, as Mousinho was rewarded for employing a ballsy high-stakes pressing game which inevitably left gaps at the other end of the pitch.

Ferguson’s view was Pompey were second best by a distance, however, and could only offer a direct route to Colby Bishop as 4,000 travelling fans lapped up a big win.

He told the Peterborough Telegraph: ‘There’s more than a sense of disappointment with the result. I’m really proud of the performance as we were by far the better team.

‘They’re lucky, they’re lucky to come away with a win. If anyone from Portsmouth says otherwise then they are kidding themselves.

‘It can be a cruel game and we just couldn’t get that first goal. We need a bit of luck in big games, but we’ve had Ephron (Mason-Clark) hit the underside of the bar, yet performance-wise, I was really proud of them.

‘We controlled large parts of the game, while their plan was to just get it forward and use Colby Bishop to win the balls and second balls. When we passed the ball, some of our play was fantastic. Our game plan was good and Joel Randall was outstanding. He was always finding space.

‘I’m disappointed for the players because they didn’t deserve that result and some of our play was excellent.’

Ferguson felt Peterborough had the game in the palm of their hands in a second half, in which Pompey grabbed the deciding goal 13 minutes from time from Kusini Yengi.

The 52-year-old felt not being ‘clinical’ was the key to his side coming away empty handed.

He added: ‘From the moment the second half started, we were well in control. We just didn’t have that clinical touch. The amount of opportunities we got that could have created chances, but we didn’t because the final ball was disappointing.

‘We can have no complaints about the performance. If we play like that for the last eight games though, we will be fine.

‘I said before the game, we need to give a really good performance to win the game, but unfortunately we got the first part without getting the most important part.

‘I’ve got really good choices up front. I started with Malik Mothersille because of the tighter spaces there would be and he’s better in there, but when the games opens up, Ricky Jade-Jones is a real asset.

‘Ryan De Havilland was outstanding. He played really, really well. I was delighted for him. As a team, it was a good performance but you’d rather have a bad performance and win, a bit like we did on Wednesday.’