While his father Sir Alex was able to splash out £30.75million on one player during the August transfer window, Peterborough United manager Darren Ferguson was content to spend only around £350,00 - and that brought in five players!

Ferguson junior has obviously not got the cash resources at his disposal as has his dad at the mighty Manchester United, whose chase and final capture of Tottenham Hotspur striker Dimitar Berbatov created a flow of national newspaper headlines.

By comparison Peterborough's transfer dealings were decidedly low-key. The Posh are not, however, cash-strapped. On the contrary, in Darragh MacAnthony they have a multi-millionaire chairman with big ambitions for the club.

But like Fergie senior, 36 year-old former midfielder Darren is very much his own man and is aiming to fulfil the chairman's ambitions - and his own - by means of long term development rather than short term fix.

Instead of spending big money to bring well-known, experienced players to London Road the Posh boss trawls the lower leagues and non-league scene and is happy to sign young players who he feels can help Posh progress upwards through the divisions.

Since stepping into management for the first time in January last year, Ferguson has signed players from clubs such as Billericay, Northwich Victoria and Cambridge United for nominal fees.

His biggest spend was £400,000 on goalkeeper Joe Lewis from Norwich City, and what a buy - the 20 year-old has since made his debut for England Under-21's and also got into the senior squad for the summer's friendlies against the USA and Trinidad & Tobago.

Ferguson says: "I'm happy to deal with players with good potential and help make them better players. It's a policy the chairman and I agree on, we believe in it and it's a good policy for this football club.

"You only have to look at what other clubs are doing now - they've cottoned on a bit and there are a lot of non-league players being bought. There's a good market out there and maybe we've got the best ones out of it, but there's still quality there."

Ferguson will continue to search for that quality after his five summer signings came variously from Dagenham & Redbridge, Cambridge and Wycombe Wanderers - from whom he signed the trio of Russell Martin, Sergio Torres and Tom Williams.

Even when he brings in loan players from bigger clubs Ferguson tends to opt for quality youngsters, as shown by the arrival of defender Gabriel Zakuani (22) from Fulham and next week's hoped-for loan signing of Manchester United midfielder Darron Gibson (20).

This pair will be thrown into the Ferguson mix as Posh look to put behind them a run of poor early season results - three defeats and just one win from their four League games to date - following their promotion from League 2.

Despite the lack of points, however, Ferguson is confident that his team will hold their own in the higher division and he will certainly be looking to take three points from Saturday's televised home match against Bristol Rovers.

"There's only four games gone," he says, "and if we can get the win (against Rovers) I think we'll be right back at it. My players have got better since last season, that's what I was looking for and we can have another good season this time."