Darragh MacAnthony has issued the following update to the club's official website.
Posh fans, I thought it only fair to give you a brief update as to my thoughts on a few topics regarding your club, the subject of the managers position, future plans and my thoughts on the next 5 games and next season.First off, I want to thank you for your continued support at recent home games and indeed many away fixtures where our following has been nothing short of phenomenal and most importantly for the large majority of you that are behind myself and the club which has and is currently been shown in season ticket renewals we are receiving on a daily basis. I appreciate the season at many times has been testing for us all in many aspects whether it be inconsistency in results, lack of goals, lack of free flowing football, managerial changes, ridiculous mass injuries across the squad prior to our new physiotherapist arriving, an awful playing surface, poor performances when it matters and so on.
I stressed at the start of this campaign that patience would be needed, but had no idea it would lead to it being tested so severely as has been the case on so many occasions this season. I have owned the club for eight full seasons and for 90% of the time, we have been either involved in a title race, an automatic promotion race, a play off race multiple times, winning cup runs to Wembley, staying in the Championship, going into record books for highest points total for leaving the Championship in dramatic last minute circumstances, or scoring a 100 goals in lots of those 8 seasons so I guess the bar is always set high considering the % of success I’ve just mentioned over those 8 seasons. I don’t do excuses, never have, never will and I don’t do meaningless apologies so I wouldn’t insult any Posh fans intelligence's by starting now. Instead I’ll give you a brief glimpse of where my mind-set currently is in regards to the managerial position at the club, players futures and my own expectations for the rest of this season and importantly; next season.
Dave Robertson and his staff came in when we were at our lowest moment in a long time, took a talented group of individuals who collectively as a team were fragile and to be blunt; serial underachievers for most of the season in large parts especially when only winning twice in 20 odd games at one stage. They effectively galvanised the squad, had them training and playing with a smile on their faces and this led to us winning five of their first six games in charge against some of the best teams in League One both home and away.
The last three performances have indeed taken the wind out of our sails so to speak and once more brought with it serious discontent from the terraces not just about the results, but the style in which our players have reverted to. A lot of our fans appear to think the first team management staff are proponents of so called Hoof ball, yet anybody who has seen how our Academy and its many youth teams have played over the last 6 plus years can testify to seeing only fast free-flowing, high-scoring football.
I’ll be the first to say the style and standard of football seen over the last 4 plus games from the first team is nothing like how I want our club to play, not now or ever and our current management team know my feelings on this and agree this isn’t the Peterborough United way we have all come to know and love. The current management squad knows that I have not committed to them beyond the next 5 plus games and they also are aware I will be traveling to the UK in May to oversee formal interviews not just with them for the full time position of manager, but with a short list of other candidates to formally interview also. Nobody has been ruled out and effectively nobody has been guaranteed the job either.
There is a lot that needs to be fixed on the playing staff side of things, but it will take time, it will take restructuring of the first team squad and it will take a lot of hard work on the training ground. Every member of our first team squad is playing for their own futures and they are not naïve as to think I won’t oversee these changes in the summer season. I said it previously, I truly believe we have some very talented individuals playing nowhere near their potential, many of them young and many of them will learn from the inconsistencies they have suffered in their own performances this season, but as a group, as a team, they have been found out once too often this season and the lack of goals scored is a record in all the time I’ve owned the club. This will be addressed and fixed this summer and it will be interesting to see how many of our own players perform over the final games left in the season.
I’ll do everything in my power to get our club back to the Championship, back to scoring goals galore and back to being an exciting team that gets our fans on their feet with excitement and joy, this is my promise to you. If you are not interested in backing me to make this happen, I’ll frustratingly understand and do my best to win your business and support back as quick as I can.
This update is not a rallying call, a pick me up or a load of empty propaganda, this is me keeping you our fans, our custodians of this club in the loop as to my mind-set, my immediate thoughts and my future ambitions. You have decided already to have Posh as the club you support whether many years ago or recently, now you choose how to support them either up close and personal which makes a positive difference to the club and its ambitions or from afar which of course does nothing positive for the club or where it wants to go. Either way I’ll live by the choices Posh fans make and I’ll do everything in my power to make you happy and keep you happy as best I can.
Keep it Posh!
DMAC
Chairman