Peterborough boss Darren Ferguson makes stunning Birmingham City admission & lets loose with 'best ever' claim

Darren Ferguson believes his third career Vertu Trophy triumph, a 2-0 victory for Peterborough United over Birmingham City at Wembley, was the best of his career due to the difficulty of opposition.

Ferguson has now won the EFL Trophy more times than any other head coach in history and Peterborough are the first team to ever retain the title. It was never going to be easy to see off League One title winners Birmingham to claim the crown but the Posh scored two cracking goals and defended impeccably to complete a famous victory under the arch.

Birmingham were hoping Tuesday’s 2-1 win away at Peterborough - enough to mathematically secure promotion to the Championship - would be a successful dress rehearsal for the meeting at Wembley. Blues were unable to repeat the heroics of midweek, however, as Peterborough ran out deserved victors.

The goals from the Posh were unstoppable and worthy of winning any cup final, in fairness, as 19-year-old left-back Harley Mills scored a stunning 30-yard free-kick and Hector Kyprianou fired in emphatically from the edge of the area. Ferguson was delighted those moments of quality were delivered as he knew beating Blues was a mammoth task.

“Given the opposition, it has to be the best one,” Ferguson responded when asked how the result ranks against his previous EFL Trophy triumphs.

“They’re so good at pressing and are so aggressive. I think the game on Tuesday, I know we lost it but it did us the world of good. They’re such a good team you have to say that, but it gave the lads a lot of belief that they didn’t blow us away on Tuesday, at all.

“You could argue they’re one of the best teams League One has ever seen. I have to congratulate them, they’re a good team to watch and Chris (Davies) has done a good job. I would’ve said that whether we won or lost. But today was our day,” Ferguson added.

Birmingham boss dissects Wembley disappointment

Blues head coach Chris Davies has no qualms over Peterborough’s triumph as he believes they deserved to win at Wembley. Davies has put the defeat down to two moments of brilliance and his own team’s failure to meet their usual standards.

“It wasn’t to be our day, congratulations to Peterborough for their victory,” Davies said. “I think they scored two unbelievable goals from outside the box. The first one obviously from the free-kick puts us behind, we get going again, and then they score the other one.

“We had a bit of a mountain to climb after those two strikes I think they were high moments of quality from their point of view, the moments of quality that were missing in our game. We got to the final third so consistently, but from the final third it’s how do you create goal chances from that and we just missed that today, those combinations.

“I think we could have crossed the ball a little more today and in the end we just couldn’t find the gaps in their defence. We sadly fell short today of what was required to win the match.”

Disappointment is of course the dominant emotion but Davies was sure to remind supporters of Birmingham’s success outside of the Vertu Trophy. Achieving promotion back to the Championship and winning the title with six games to go is no mean feat, even for a team with the spending power as strong as that of Blues.

“To win a league with six games to go and lose only three all season and deliver the sort of consistency these players have… for me, today proves what they’ve done in the league this season because you can have games like this. Home or away, it can happen,” Davies added.

“We’ve still got six games to go – two at home, four away. There is within that going to be a day which I will savour, where we are going to lift the trophy. What we need is performances and results we can be proud of before now and the end of the season.

“There’s still things out there for us to play for. Of course, the main job was returning this club to the Championship which we’ve achieved – and in style, let me say that. But there’s still six games and we want to give them our all.”