Posh boss Ferguson content with 'quiet' deadline day

Peterborough United boss Darren Ferguson is confident they "have enough" to stave off the threat of relegation despite no first-team squad incomings on transfer deadline day.

Ferguson warned on Sunday, following a 3-1 defeat at Bristol Rovers, that the club "cannot afford to be in League Two" next season.

Posh are 19th in League One, five points above the relegation places, after reaching the play-offs in the last two campaigns.

They signed three defenders earlier in January but the only new face to appear on Monday was non-league midfielder Joe Andrews, who was loaned back to former club Chippenham.

And although Romoney Crichlow departed for Bradford City, they managed to hang on to Emmanuel Fernandez, who was unable to agree personal terms with another unnamed club after Posh accepted a bid for him, and Hector Kyprianou.

Ferguson told BBC Radio Cambridgeshire said it had been "pretty quiet", but the answer was not always going out and getting half a team of new players.

He added: "If I'd wanted one or two extra players, I am sure I could have got them but for me you've got to find players that are better than what we've got at the moment - people could argue that's an easy thing to do, but it's not.

"There were one or two things we looked at which didn't quite come off, a couple went to Championship clubs. The difficulty I've got is persuading ones to come because of the position we are in in the league, and that's nobody's fault but ourselves."

Ferguson said they had also received an offer for midfielder Kyprianou, but it was not good enough to persuade them to sell.

He added: "I'm happy to go with what we've got and I'm very confident we'll have enough to meet the objectives we've got for the rest of the season."

Peterborough are at home to Cheltenham Town in the EFL Trophy quarter-finals on Wednesday evening, a competition they won at Wembley last season.

But because Saturday's scheduled game has been postponed because Birmingham City are still in the FA Cup, their next three in the league are all away from home - against Charlton Athletic, Stevenage and Huddersfield Town.

Ferguson confirmed that on-loan Jadel Katongo will be out for "at least six weeks" after he suffered a fresh hamstring problem against Bristol Rovers.