TEAM boss Trevor Swales has slammed his Peterborough charges as he branded Monday's defeat to Belle Vue as "the worst performance of the season".
The Readypower Panthers started well but threw away points at key stages of the meeting which led to a 13-point defeat that Swales has labelled "unacceptable".
Polish duo Norbert Kosciuch and Krzysztof Buczkowski managed just one point between them while Nicki Pedersen recorded paid-six in a tough night that included two falls.
It was again left to Troy Batchelor to save face for the Panthers as his remarkable form continued with 16 points, and Linus Sundström and Richard Lawson, both riding the Kirkmanshulme Lane circuit for the first time, grabbed seven apiece.
It was a hugely disappointing collapse for the Showground side and has led to the Peterborough hierarchy pondering the team situation, with the team soon to enter their busiest phase of the season.
An unhappy Swales said: "We were totally let down by the middle order. There are two or three riders tonight that have lost the meeting for us and it doesn't take a genius to work out who they are.
"The Polish boys were very poor and Nicki was pretty lame too by his standards. He should be making every Heat 15 but tonight we had no choice but to put Linusin again.
“We are simply not going to win away if we carry on under-performing and that is something we now have to look at. We can't carry people."
Swales was, however, full of praise for Batchelor and Lawson: "Batch was brilliant again tonight and it's what we have come to expect from him.
"He is in fantastic form and we're lucky we had him tonight. Richard is another who did well, he's never seen this place but he came and got some decent points.Those two, along with Linus, held us together.
"We cannot carry on dropping points away though. That's effectively what we've done tonight; there were four points on offer and we've thrown them away.
"If we don't start picking up points away soon we aren't going to get where we want to be, which is obviously the play-offs. We have to go to Lakeside and get something now and everybody knows how difficult that can be. “There are a few riders who are just not good enough away at the moment and that's something we now have to sit down and think about."
The Panthers travel to the Arena Essex Raceway on Friday to take on Lakeside (July 29). After that they face a six-day lay-off before they head to Swindon inanother important away fixture (August 4).
BELLE VUE 53: Chris Harris 13:1, Rory Schlein 11:1, Charlie Gjedde 10, Craig Cook 7:2, Ricky Kling 6:1, Patrick Hougaard 4:3, Jason Garrity 2.