Jimmy Floyd Hasselbaink hailed a “very good” performance from his Burton side as goals from Kane Hemmings and Hayden Carter saw Peterborough knocked off top spot in Sky Bet League One.

The Brewers scored twice in four second-half minutes before substitute Harrison Burrows ruined their clean sheet with a stoppage-time consolation goal, but the 2-1 victory made it four wins in a row for Hasselbaink’s revitalised side.

“As a team performance it was very good,” Hasselbaink said. “We were really tight on their forward players and we didn’t give them space and they really had to earn the right to play around us and that was how we had to approach the game.

“If we make it a game of we play then you play, we are going to lose. We needed to make it a tight game. We needed to make it as tight as possible for them but then make chances for ourselves.”

Hemmings close-range finish broke the stalemate after a tight first half and Hasselbaink was delighted to grab a scruffy second so quickly afterwards as goalkeeper Christy Pym failed to keep out Carter’s scrambled shot.

“It was vital to get the goal and the second as well,” Hasselbaink added. “The second was a scruffy kind of goal but that means that you are sharp around the box and alert.

“I was delighted with those two goals but it was still far from over because they are a very, very, very good team. They are not top of the league for nothing. When you play these teams your goalkeeper has to make certain saves, and he did.”

A philosophical Darren Ferguson was left to rue a below-par performance at both ends of the pitch on a rare off-day for his promotion-chasing side.

“It is a disappointing day, we haven’t had too many of them lately,” he said.

“Quite simply, it is not hard to analyse why we lost the game, we were not good enough in both boxes. Funnily enough that is the last thing I said to the players before the game and it’s what has cost us.”

Ferguson was disappointed to concede the first from Hemmings, but even more so with the second that gave Albion a vice-like grip on the game.

He added: “We gave away two cheap goals, the first one in particular. It was poor to concede a second goal so quickly after that, we still had a long way to go in the game at that point.

“We created opportunities, but the composure and quality wasn’t there. You are losing games if you’re not good enough in both boxes.

“Even with 10 minutes to go, I felt if we got one goal we could get back into it.

“I said to the players afterwards, we need to react, we need to move on quickly. We can’t get it back. We have to look ahead and it is the perfect game for us on Tuesday to do that (against Hull at home). I think it is a great game for us on Tuesday.”