As preparations for entertaining the Premier League leaders go, a hectic week in which Peterborough United reappointed Grant McCann as manager following the surprise resignation of Darren Ferguson, then sank to the bottom of the Championship after losing 3-0 at home against Hull at least proved character-building.
“It has been insane,” says Stewart Thompson, one of the club’s three co-owners. “We had our three most important games, we had a change of manager, we have Man City coming up … ridiculous is the best word. It’s been an absolute gong show.”
Perhaps the FA Cup fifth round will provide some light relief. How do Posh view a sold-out match against Pep Guardiola’s side when skirting relegation remains at the forefront of their minds? “Umm … a free hit?” says Thompson who, alongside his fellow Canada-based investor, Jason Neale, acquired a 50% stake in the club in 2018.
“Last season we got taken out [in the second round] by a team in the second tier of non-league [Chorley], four divisions below us. So, if somebody can do it to us, we can do it to them, too. But it is just as realistic that we get absolutely hurt by seven. None of us have a clue what is going to happen on Tuesday and that is just the magic of the Cup, isn’t it?”
It would appear a daunting task for a Peterborough team struggling to stay afloat in the second tier. They have lost five of their past six games, including a narrow defeat to leaders Fulham, who shipped four goals at City in the previous round.
Ferguson departed after a deflating stoppage-time defeat at fellow strugglers Derby. Thompson concedes McCann replacing Ferguson, who had three spells in charge of the club, could look like “lazy hiring by three owners who always go back to the well” but he believes the Northern Irishman, who was sacked in 2018, when the club was 10th in League One, is the perfect fit. “I wonder how the process would have gone if Grant hadn’t been available, so there’s a bit of that timing that is fortuitous. Some might call it fate.”
McCann, who spent five years at Peterborough as a midfielder, knows playing City will be a psychological challenge. “I take myself back to when I was playing,” he says. “Confidence can get low when you haven’t won games but it is about trying to change that culture. It’s an opportunity to go and show everyone what we’re about. Yes, they’re one of the best teams in the world but we’ve got to embrace it. The boys need to play with a smile on their face and see what happens.”
The starting XI against Hull on Saturday had an average age of 24 and only five of those had played in the division before this season. “We’ve had such a great history of ‘young and hungry’ and it just hasn’t clicked yet this year,” says Thompson. “We might be the only club that hasn’t had a run of three or four games to get some wind in the sails. Every step has been a slog … [but] we’ve still got time.”
Peterborough sold Siriki Dembele to Bournemouth in January, the winger becoming the latest in a long line of forwards to depart for a club higher up the food chain. Ivan Toney, Britt Assombalonga and Dwight Gayle made their names at London Road.
Harrison Burrows, 20, and, at the other end of the pitch, the centre-back Ronnie Edwards, 18, have both been given a platform to impress this season. Thompson does not gloss over an “entire season of tie your shoelaces together” but insists the squad is good enough to stay up. “I am really disappointed with how we’ve done. I might be biased but I think Grant has way more tools in the locker here than he did at Hull.”
The thought of City coming to town takes Thompson back to a scene in The Damned United in which Derby’s Brian Clough, in readiness for the arrival of Don Revie and Leeds at the Baseball Ground in the third round of the Cup in 1968, carefully lays out oranges inside the away dressing room, sweeps the floor and scrubs the tiles.
“There is an element of that with this [City] team coming to the home of the Posh,” he says. “It is the poor cousins hosting Jeff Bezos at the house. I’m looking forward to City because I finally get to go to a game with no pressure.”
