Darren Ferguson sends promoted Birmingham City message ahead of Vertu Trophy final
Blues will be aiming to beat Peterborough United once again at Wembley
Darren Ferguson insists Peterborough United “will take a lot” from their latest defeat to Birmingham City ahead of the Vertu Trophy final.
Chris Davies’ side also beat Ferguson’s men 3-2 in League One back in September, which means they have completed a league double over their rivals ahead of facing them in the Vertu Trophy final at Wembley on Sunday (3pm).
But, despite losing twice to Blues already this season, Ferguson is not throwing the towel in.
“We will take a lot out of this going into Sunday,” he said. “We’ve played them twice and lost by the odd goal.”
Alfie May’s header opened the scoring for Birmingham on Tuesday night, but Peterborough quickly levelled through Kwame Poku’s superb strike.
What turned out to be the Blues’ winner came when Taylor Gardner-Hickman squeezed a shot under Posh goalkeeper Nicholas Bilokapic in the 37th minute.
Ferguson added: “We knew we had to get a reaction from Saturday’s woeful performance (against Northampton) and we got that.
“We were at it, we gave them a game, as I felt we would. If we get our performances up to a certain level, we’re going to give anyone a game in this league and we did tonight.
“I thought in moments in the game we were good – we can pick the bones out of it tomorrow in terms of what we did well and what we need to work on.
“The goals were soft: you’ve got to stop the cross and if you don’t stop the cross then you’ve got to mark – and the second goal shouldn’t go in the net.
“We reacted really well to going 1-0 down, Kwame smacked it, didn’t even think about it, it was a great finish and he was outstanding on the night, a really good performance.”