PETERBOROUGH United chairman Darragh MacAnthony described the January transfer window as "ludicrous", explaining how Siriki Dembele expressed his preference to join Cherries.

Dembele was one of five players to complete a move to Cherries on a crazy deadline day.

He arrived on a permanent deal from Peterborough, penning a three-and-a-half year contract, for a fee reportedly around £1.5million.

Explaining via an Instagram video their decision to let Dembele depart, MacAnthony said: "The Dembs situation, obviously he's been unavailable for our last three games. Trust me, we'd have loved him to have been available, but he said he had a sore foot.

"We obviously sent him for scans, went through the whole thing, not available. The scans didn't show anything up, but obviously the boy didn't feel like he could play.

"He then came to me 20 minutes before the start of the game on Saturday, not ideal, to say that he wanted to go to only one club.

"We had bids accepted from Birmingham and Blackburn and Bournemouth were at the same stage they'd been for a week or so. He made it very clear that he wanted to join Bournemouth. I'm always transparent - at that stage I said 'look, I have something more important going on and that's a game of football against Sheffield United'.

"Because staying in this league is more important to us than anything else.

"After the game, I spoke to the manager, we both agreed to do the deal with Bournemouth, let him go. At the end of the day, we need everybody on side.

"We need our fans on side, we need our players on side and the window closing gives us that opportunity because it's been absolutely ludicrous, this window, the last few days."