Furious Ferguson blames 'schoolboy' defending for Peterborough United's defeat at Wigan Athletic
Darren Ferguson blamed 'schoolboy' defending for Peterborough United's 3-0 defeat against Wigan Athletic at the Brick Community Stadium.
Latics broke their goal drought in style, as a brace from Dale Taylor and a ‘worldie’ from Callum McManaman ended a run of three goalless draws in a row.
Thanks to goalkeeper Sam Tickle, Latics also recorded a fifth clean sheet on the spin, with the England Under-21 international pulling off a quite stupendous save to deny Kwame Poku from point-black range at 1-0.
However, Ferguson reckoned his team were their own worst enemies.
"I'm disappointed, as you would expect," fumed Ferguson. "Losing 3-0 suggests you've been battered, but really in that first half we battered them.
"We're just not giving ourselves a chance, we're not giving ourselves a platform. The first two goals are really, really awful goals to concede...schoolboy stuff.
"If teams are playing through us, or coming up with brilliance like the third goal - and Callum McManaman has always had that - then you hold your hands up and admire the quality.
"But when teams are scoring from four yards, with no contact against them, like their first goal, then fundamentally you have a problem."
On Poku's miss shortly after Wigan had taken the lead, Ferguson added: "Kwame, I can't believe he's missed, he's got an open goal.
"We then said at half-time that we needed to keep hurting them, keep our discipline,move the ball quickly, which we did, but then we concede again at the start of the second half. It's the easiest goal that Taylor will score this season.
"I know we have a young back four, but that's not an excuse, I'm not one for making excuses. We're better than that, we can't keep conceding goals like that. We've had 11 games now and we haven't kept one clean sheet, so it's staring you in the face really.
“We’re a young group and, at the moment, we’re struggling a bit. It’s important I help them through this period. We need to keep the confidence, the belief and keep working with them.
“It’s important the supporters help them as well. We are going through a little bit of a tough spell defensively and we need to sort that out.”