Peterborough United have invited the circus into town

Peterborough United always had a plan and, by every reasonable measure, that plan was admirable. The “buy low, develop and sell on” strategy is becoming increasingly popular amongst owners of English Football League clubs who would like to limit their financial losses. Peterborough were doing it long before the fashion. Owner Darragh MacAnthony, outspoken but always wholeheartedly committed, Peterborough routinely had the youngest starting XI in English professional football. The owner’s very public railing against the economic insanity of the environment in which he operated was understandable. Very few – if any – clubs were more financially sustainable. It also worked. Peterborough United didn’t suffer for their off-field dogmatism. Before 2025, they hadn’t finished in the bottom half of League One since 2016. Occasionally supporters would make accusations of a paucity of ambition. It always felt unfair because Peterborough were operating on a different financial plane to the rest. And then it stopped working. Whether because their peers mimicked the same model but with slightly bigger budgets or Peterborough simply made a series of recruitment mistakes, the form suffered a pronounced downturn. Peterborough finished 18th in each of the last two League One seasons before and after swapping Darren Ferguson for Luke Williams. The summer response was to invest in the playing squad: 12 new signings including Liam Kelly from MK Dons, Ethan Williams from Manchester United and spending £700,000 on Danny Ormerod from AFC Fylde. Luke Williams was backed in the transfer market, or that was the theory. Williams was sacked in September with Posh second bottom of League One. Ormerod, the standout transfer fee of their summer, has started one league match. The simple conclusion is that the replacements have been of a lesser standard than the key players who have left over the last 24 months and this team was already sliding down the table.Enter Robbie Savage, stage left. The move was noisy because it was Savage getting his first job in the Football League despite leaving Forest Green Rovers in midtable of the National League. It was noisy because it sparked an argument between two owners who are… comfortable with speaking in the public sphere and may yet end up in a court case about it. It was also noisy because MacAnthony has deliberately continued to make lots of noise. Savage’s appointment was not popular with a significant percentage of supporters, many of whom voiced those opinions online (as they are perfectly entitled to do). Peterborough were recently thrashed 5-0 at home to Reading in the FA Cup (Photo: Getty) Is it commendable for a football club owner to communicate directly with supporters and be transparent about the club’s processes? Yes. Do we wish more club owners would operate in such a way? Also yes. Is it useful for an owner, in social media replies, to promise to sell his stake if the club isn’t in the top 10 by February? Probably not. I’m not sure it’s as helpful to Savage as MacAnthony believes it is. It didn’t stop there. MacAnthony hosts his own podcast, Hard Truth: Inside the Football Industry, on which he said that the club is over their salary cap for the season, can’t sign any players without selling January and that he believes striker Harry Leonard can score 30 goals this season. Again: noisy. To that we have to add Savage’s own PR since taking the job. He has repeatedly carried out television punditry commitments, including TNT Sport’s Champions League coverage. On Friday night, Savage was part of the TV coverage for Oxford City vs Leicester City in the FA Cup, the same competition his own side were playing in the next day. There is no suggestion that Savage has not committed fully to his managerial duties, but – personal opinion – the optics of it are poor given Peterborough United have won two league matches all season. Like it or not, Savage needed to win over sceptics within his own fanbase. The best way to do that is to create the impression that improving players and match performance is the only thing you are working on. Going on the TV to offer your expert analysis on other teams won’t do you many favours if, the next day, your own team loses 5-0 at home. Savage has drawn two and lost four of his last six games after winning his opening two. Read more Pete Hall: Man Utd fans hit a new low by humiliating Diogo Dalot Pete Blackburn: How Nottingham Forest are outrunning relegation trouble None of this may matter at all: the whole point about noise is that it becomes defunct when blocked out. Start moving up League One and nobody cares about two hours of punditry. Score some more goals and nobody will care if it’s Leonard scoring them or not. A communicative owner becomes a pure strength when the team is winning. But until then, we are allowed to question the methodology here. Things started going wrong at Peterborough – that can easily happen. But rather than move quietly to find an attempted fix, they have given off the impression that the only mission is proving the haters wrong. A model club has become an underthinking, oversharing mess that invited the circus to town and staked its reputation on keeping the show under control. Still, it’ll certainly be worth watching.