Delighted Peterborough boss Darren Ferguson hailed hat-trick hero Siriki Dembele as Posh surged to the top of League One.

Dembele produced a stunning individual display as 10-man Shrewsbury were thrashed 5-1.

He earned the penalty from which Jonson Clarke-Harris fired Posh ahead and, after Josh Daniels levelled, restored the lead before half-time.

Dembele was on the receiving end of an ugly challenge which led to Shrewsbury’s Josh Vela being dismissed in added time and then scored twice more in the second half before Jack Taylor added a late fifth.

Ferguson said: “Siriki was absolutely brilliant. We all know what he is capable of doing and today everyone saw it.

“He earned us the penalty to go ahead but it was disappointing to concede such a soft goal straight away.

“Dembs then produced a fantastic goal to get us back in front and he is also one of the bravest players I’ve had because he gets booted all over the park game after game.

“The challenge on him for the red card was nothing short of a disgrace, but he picked himself up, got on with it and got himself two more goals in the second half.

“Certain aspects of our performance could have been better, though, and if we had done things right more often, we could have scored more than five goals.

“But my players have been absolutely magnificent to come through such an important and busy month unbeaten with six wins and a draw and they deserve a lot of credit for that.”

Shrewsbury boss Sam Ricketts admitted: “Ultimately individual errors cost us. We can’t hide behind anything else.

“We were well in the game early on and probably should have scored two goals but then found ourselves behind when a ball from nothing led to a penalty completely against the run of play.

“We didn’t allow ourselves to get deflated and deserved to get ourselves back level but another error cost us a second goal and we then found ourselves fighting with 10 men for the rest of the game.

“I’ve not seen Josh’s challenge back so can’t comment on the severity of it, but if it was a deserved red card it goes down as another error on our part.

“We kept ourselves in the game until the third Peterborough goal which gave them the confidence to kick on again.

“We can’t just keep giving away cheap goals as we are doing and expect to win games. We’re not commanding enough in both boxes at the moment.”