What Peterborough's boss said about his side's victory over Portsmouth

The impressive striker wreaked havoc against Kenny Jackett’s men, also netting in Saturday’s 2-0 success.

It took the 23-year-old’s tally to 26 for the season as he returned from a two-match suspension in style, leading the Posh to a convincing victory.

It was a third successive away defeat for the Blues, all coming against promotion rivals in Coventry, Fleetwood and now Peterborough.

Ferguson was delighted with his team’s showing, comfortably overcoming the visitors in a showing which demonstrated their promotion credentials – and Toney’s talents.

He told the Peterborough Telegraph: ‘That was impressive. We knew the stakes were high in a game we couldn’t afford to lose and the way we set about the task so confidently and so assuredly was outstanding.

‘We reminded the players how good they felt when beating Rotherham and Oxford earlier this year and they repeated the standard of those wins. They are our standards now. We know if we play to this level we will take some stopping.

‘That’s not us getting carried away, it’s just what I take from this performance. We have no room for error in the final nine games, but this standard will get us close to where we want to go.

‘My front two caused them no end of problems. I went with Dembele rather than Mo Eisa as I felt his strengths would unsettle the defenders we were likely to be playing and so it proved.

‘And they couldn’t cope with Ivan Toney. I have no idea how he scored his goal. He just swung his left at the ball and it went in.

‘We are far from a one-man team though. Of course Ivan is important as he’s the best player in League One, but clean sheets will be just as important to us as we will always score goals.

‘And Portsmouth gave us very few problems apart from a couple of half chances.’