Peterborough United 3-0 Stockport County: Resurgent Posh cruise to comfortable win

Peterborough United’s resurgence under new manager Luke Williams continued with a 3-0 win over Stockport County, who were knocked off the top of Sky Bet League One.

Posh have won all four of their matches in all competitions since Williams took charge and are now just one point from safety.

Meanwhile, the Hatters have been replaced at the summit by Lincoln City.

Peterborough led after just five minutes as Peter Kioso’s cross reached Harry Leonard, who laid the ball off for Ben Woods to stroke in his first goal for the club.

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Thumping finish

Having been much the better side, Posh doubled their lead in the 37th minute when Jimmy-Jay Morgan’s shot was pushed out by Ben Hinchliffe for Kyrell Lisbie, who tucked in the rebound.

Brandon Khela then made the result safe for Peterborough in the 76th minute with a thumping finish into the roof of the net from a tricky angle.

Declan Frith nearly added a fourth with a shot saved by Hinchliffe’s foot before Stockport’s Jayden Fevrier was denied a consolation by Alex Bass in stoppage time.

Commitment

After the game, Williams said: “I think if you set your stall out in that way as a group, you’re going to get people onside.

“They can see that level of commitment from their guys on the pitch that are representing them and they’ll give the energy back.

“There wasn’t a huge crowd, but they made as much noise as they could and I hope we helped them feel a bit warmer on a freezing cold night by the players showing their commitment.

“More than wanting to control the game and have a lot of possession, I want my team to be tough and I want my team to remember the rules of the game, which is deny at one end and create at the other.

“How we look in between the two boxes will develop over time, but first and foremost, we’re doing a good job of protecting our box and attacking the opposition’s.”

Shockingly bad

Stockport boss Dave Challinor said: “We knew coming here, regardless of what their league position says, that we were going to have to go about it in a certain way.

“We wanted to jump on them and knew we’d have to defend well one-v-one, and in moments we didn’t do that well enough.

“It’s difficult to say you started the game OK when you concede within five minutes, but we did start the game OK.

“We picked the ball up and took the ball off them in good areas in their attacking half, but we turned the ball over miles too easy when we got it back and that happened throughout the course of the first half.

“The goals were shockingly bad – we can have an argument the second goal was offside, but the manner of the goals is nowhere near good enough.

“We didn’t get that next goal and then the game opens up at the end.”

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