Peterborough United boss Darren Ferguson ready to 'attack' March after 'pivotal' win

Ephron Mason-Clark has scored 16 goals for Peterborough this season

Peterborough United boss Darren Ferguson hopes their derby win at Cambridge United will be "pivotal" to their automatic promotion chances.

The 1-0 victory ended a run of four successive league defeats and left them fifth in the League One table.

Posh lost three in a row earlier in the season, but then were only beaten once in the next 22 games.

"To lose four games on the bounce is terrible, but there's still time to catch up," said Ferguson.

The Scot told BBC Radio Cambridgeshire that the result was more important than their EFL Trophy semi-final win at Blackpool four days earlier, which secured a trip to Wembley in April.

Before that, they have seven league fixtures next month - five of them at home - and Ferguson is hoping for a healthy points haul to push them towards his target of a top-two finish, and automatic promotion.

"We've got to attack March with real aggression and positivity, we've got a lot of home games, the pitch will be better, [and] I know what I've got in that dressing room," he told BBC Radio Cambridgeshire.

"We just had a blip and now hopefully we can start another run similar to what we did in September.

"There's no question we have to win a lot of games to get anywhere near where we want to be, but I think we're capable of doing it."

Peterborough's winner against Cambridge was slightly fortunate, with Ephron Mason-Clark's cross evading everyone and finding the corner of the net.

He will be a crucial player in the run-in, having been allowed to remain with Posh on loan after agreeing a January move to Coventry City.

"We spoke to him at half-time about moving the ball quicker, he allowed them to get tackles in too many times," said Ferguson.

"Our job is to get him the ball as quickly as we can to allow him one v ones. Cambridge are very well organised, they double up all the time, so it was hard, but he never shies away from getting tackled or kicked."

Peterborough have had 12 clean sheets this season, but Saturday's was only the second since the beginning of 2024.

And Ferguson added: "We need to have more clean sheets from now to the end of the season. We've got to get that up. That's going to be really key to us being successful or not."