How to fix Peterborough United
To say we’re in a spot of bother would undersell the death spiral we've fallen into.
With just two league wins so far this season, and to find a third victory, we need to go back a shocking 28 games. It’s clear we’re in BIG trouble.
More recently, just 4,000 fans turned up to watch Robbie Savage’s side get humiliated by Reading and dumped out of the FA Cup in the first round. That's the first time it’s happened in 21 years.
We are on our third manager in a little over a year, and this time round there has been no surge up the table. The bounce just lasted one giddy afternoon at Leicester.
The squad isn't good enough; we all know that. But swapping the manager again won't fix it.
Here's what would, in the order it needs doing.
1. Get experience in the staff
Robbie has gone with what's already in the building:
Academy director Dan Robinson is his assistant.
Ryan Semple steps up from the academy to first-team coach.
Harry Hogg is the goalkeeping coach.
Taewoong Kim is our sports scientist.
Club legend Craig Mackail-Smith comes in as attacking coach.
The academy has been the best thing about this club for two years, and these are the people who brought through the young players who have outperformed the senior ones this season.
However, unlike Luke Williams, Savage is not a technical coach. He sets the standards, the formation and the game plan, but he doesn’t lay out cones and design drills, and the pace and physicality of League One is a step up from the academy.
We've got an attacking coach, but we haven't got a defensive one, and our problems are at the back.
The missing piece is a seasoned coach who has organised a back four through a League One survival fight and takes charge of set pieces.
One appointment, alongside the people already there, is the cheapest of the fixes, and the only one that can change anything before January.
This is no slight on Robinson and the rest of the backroom staff. But this no time for blooding new coaches with little or no experience of the Football League. We need someone who has been there and done it, who enjoys relegation fights before breakfast.
2. Pick a shape, then sign for it
Before we spend a penny in January, Savage must decide how we'll play.
Option one is a back three.
Our best senior players are centre-backs: Hughes, O'Connor and young Mendonca, who has proven himself capable at this level.
Savage already switched to a back three against Luton, with Hughes in the middle and O'Connor on the left. It would give Harry Leonard a strike partner, rather than leaving him on his own up there.
To play in this formation would require at least one wingback, ideally two.
Option two is to stick with the current formation and sign a proper League One winger to get up and support Leonard, so he isn't living off scraps.
Owura Edwards struggles with delivery, and teams have figured out how to stop Bolu from being a threat.
3. January: clear the decks, then sign grown men
Some fans accuse Darragh of buying players cheap to sell for profit, or of not spending enough.
I don't think it holds up. He paid over £1m for Harry Leonard. He paid £600k with add-ons for a backup striker who has barely started.
By his own account, our wage bill is bigger than Bradford's. He is definitely spending.
The problem is what he's spending it on. As a club with low attendance, our profit mainly comes through player trading.
That model has given us a lot of success. But it has given us a young squad, without senior players to lead them. It’s also given us a group of failed experiments we’re still paying for.
In the past, we bought “future gems” to weave them between the first team, the U21s, and cup games for a season or two to develop them.
More recently, we’ve thrown them straight in the deep end from academies or lower leagues.
Before anyone comes in, people need to go out. We're still paying players who will never make the first team. Luke Williams walked into a squad of 42 professionals last October, and Darragh admitted in August that it was still top-heavy.
A clear gap exists between the big physical teams and Posh, who so often get bullied off the ball. So January needs a few of the right signings, not ten of the wrong ones.
First, a new six. We brought in Liam Kelly from MK Dons, signed to replace Archie Collins. He's a good footballer, but is just 5’4” and was signed for the Williams possession game.
The current manager has said he likes a big physical six, and Kelly isn't that. We need someone to sit in front of the centre-halves, win the second balls and stop us being run through.
After that, whatever the shape needs: wingbacks for a back three, or a winger for the current formation.
If we’re sticking with four at the back, I’d like to see if we can find a right back that is more comfortable getting forward.
4. Protect the players, and stop chasing the next Lisbie
Signing young assets is fine, as long as we give them time.
Ethan Williams, Bolu Shofowoke and Vernon Masara may be good for the future, but none of them should be carrying a relegation fight right now. Give them fewer League One minutes, more development in-house and an EFL Trophy start.
Darragh is right that the young lads have outperformed the senior players this season, but that should worry us. They need proper League One quality around them, so they come into a team that's working instead of being asked to fix one that isn't.
We hit the jackpot with Kyrell Lisbie. A winger from non-league who was involved in a goal almost every game in Williams’ first few months before moving to Championship side Millwall, generating a huge return on investment.
That doesn't mean we can do it again on demand. Part of the Posh problem is expecting the next purchase to repeat the last success, when much of what made it work was as much luck as scouting prowess.
Build the core on proven League One players, and treat the next Lisbie as a bonus.
5. Summer: a sporting director who can tell the owner no
This is the one that stops us being back here next November.
Savage is our eighth permanent manager in ten years. Each one inherits a squad built for the last. Williams wanted a possession 4-3-3. Savage wants pace and chaos. The players in the middle are expected to be both.
Right now, Darragh runs recruitment.
In his words, it's "the guys who work for me, not for the club, who do the scouting". He marks the homework himself too: an A-minus for summer 2025, a D for the year before. He runs it all from Florida, and he admitted he didn't have weekly conversations with Williams because he "just wanted to coach".
A proper sporting director would be in the building every day. They'd set one player profile that survives a change of manager, take charge of fitness and medical so we stop losing our best players for months at a time, and be the person both the manager and the owner answer to on football decisions.
We have a so called director of football in Barry Fry. He is a Peterborough legend but he is over 80 and should be found a different role away from the first team.
The catch is that it only works if Darragh hands over the final say. He told The Hard Truth he should have sacked Williams at the end of last season. When the owner's patience is the only clock the club runs on, that's what happens.
If he hires a sporting director and still picks the targets, it's just a new job title.
Is it too late?
No. There are 33 league games left, and we're two points from safety. We survived from the same 10 points last season, and we were bottom then so that we can do it.
What worries me is the bar. Darragh is convinced we’ll hit the top 10 in early 2027. I'd settle for 21st by May and a summer spent fixing the structure; not another summer spent promising a promotion tilt.
Darragh admitted that our predicament is on him, not the manager, so give Savage an experienced coach, clear out the dead wood, sign League One players in January and let the younger players develop outside of the spotlight.
Then in the summer, give the football side of the club to someone who isn't the owner.
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