The five Peterborough United results that ruined the bid for automatic promotion

​And, to be fair, the quality of the football, as well as the results, demanded it. Even a title win 50 years after the last one was on after the brilliant New Year’s Day win and performance at Derby County.

But it wasn’t to be, although a fourth-place finish still represents a strong season and improvement on the 2022-23 campaign when Posh finished sixth.

There are always regrets in a campaign and these are the five results I believe cost Posh their chance of a top two spot.

​August 19

Northampton 1, Posh 0.

Posh went into the derby having won their opening three matches and fresh from a superb display when beating Barnsley 3-1 at Oakwell.

And they hadn’t lost to Cobblers for 21 years, a run that didn’t look like ending throughout 70 minutes of total dominance.

But, dodgy late substitutions, when added to missed early chances, proved costly when Cobblers scored with a late fluke with the help of a dozy piece of goalkeeping and a very alert assistant referee.

​October 3

Carlisle 1, Posh 1.

Posh missed enough chances in the first-half on a midweek night in Cumbria to win two games against dreadful opposition, but they should still have travelled back with three points after Ronnie Edwards gave them the lead 20 minutes from time with his first goal for the club.

Instead some sloppiness in possession led to a 96th-minute free kick, half a clearance and then a ridiculous deflection to present Carlisle with a most unlikely point.

​February 6

Exeter 2, Posh 1.

Posh dominated a poor team for an hour, but could only score once through a Harrison Burrows penalty. Then manager Darren Ferguson’s failure to substitute struggling on-loan winger Michael Olakigbe after he’d been cautioned came back to haunt his team. Olakigbe picked up what had seemed an inevitable red card on the hour mark and Posh went on to concede two fluke own goals to complete back-to-back defeats for the first time since August.

​February 10

Wycombe 5, Posh 2.

Four days later it became three defeats in a row as a weakened Posh team committed defensive suicide at the home of a bogey team. Posh actually fought back from 3-0 to 3-2 with a terrific David Ajiboye strike and an own goal, but conceded their second own goal of the match within a couple of minutes. It was a shocker of a performance and they went on to lose a fourth game in a row before recovering their form.

​March 29

Posh 1, Carlisle 3.

Few saw this coming as the worst team in the division won at London Road thanks to a hat-trick from a centre-back playing in midfield.

Posh had no response until Joel Randall flicked home. If Jonson Clarke-Harris hadn’t then missed a sitter with 20 minutes to go Posh might have rescued something, but they wouldn’t have deserved it.

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