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SpoonTon

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SpoonTon last won the day on February 17

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  1. Wilson had been our best midfielder over our good run. We've lost our main point of connection in attack (Oakley) and in midfield (Wilson). Probably our best two players this season. And losing those players has had a knock on effect on the roles of Muirhead, Crawford, and Blues - taking them away some of their strengths. We've also got players playing who are not fully fit. I'm not surprised that we've struggled to adapt, but I'm confident that it'll turn around soon.
  2. It's a bit gutting that injuries come back to haunt us now. I think most of us would have had Oakley and Wilson as frontrunners for PotY at this point. They've been massive for us and so pivotal to the way we've been playing. It's a shame that our attacking signings this season haven't worked out, it's really left us struggling for a plan B without Oakley. I think it shows just how difficult a job Dougie has. The margin for error is so small.
  3. Yeah, I wouldn't be at all surprised if Dougie is tempted to go with a line-up like that. So much of our great form, and the win over Motherwell, has had its foundations in not giving the opposition time or space to play. Without Oakley leading the line, that makes everyone's else's job much more difficult. Muirhead is a good player but isn't that guy, and Quitongo got nothing out of balls played up to him on Tuesday (although I'm not sure how match fit he was after his illness). There isn't really an obvious alternative to Oakley up there to underpin the intensity at which we want to play. It would be a risk to change to the back 5 but I can understand the temptation. In any case, if Oakley can play I think the only real question is whether Broadfoot comes in for O'Connor. Otherwise there are a few decisions for Dougie to make.
  4. I like that the highlights put in the bit when Jai kicks the ball off Grimshaw to go behind for what should be a corner, only for the referee (who has a clear view) to give a goal kick. The standard of refereeing recently has been beyond awful. In the first half last night there was a lengthy stoppage for an injury, a long wait to restart after the goal, and plenty of other time wasting from Dundee Utd (with the referee pointing to his watch to indicate this 2 or 3 times). And then he only adds about a minute on at the end of the half. The Cowshed linesman was hopeless, it was as if he was refusing to watch the match - there was genuinely very, very little skill involved in what he did last night, any person with even the most rudimentary grasp of the rules could have done the job as well as he did.
  5. Tuesday night was Power's first 90 minutes since November. He had played nine 90 minutes up to that point of the season. Whether by choice or necessity, we're using Power in a much better way now and really seeing the benefits. He came in without a proper run of pre/early season games and was playing full matches. By his own admission he wasn't fully fit, and especially by the latter stages of matches he was struggling (you can still see that now when he has tried to overplay things later on in hand and gets caught on the ball). He's been giving us excellent performances for 60-70 minutes every game recently and had become an important part of our outstanding form.
  6. Putting aside what night we'd like the game as fans, from a football point of view it's good news for us.
  7. I had brought this up previously. In a number of different situations you can have fans trying to move between different areas (if there is a penalty shootout, for example, or even half time and the change of match direction can do it). And even without any other circumstances, you might have more people wanting to be in the Cowshed than the Sinclair Street end. If you are filling areas to capacity then any level of movement would be problematic - but that's never actually been a problem in the past. I see no reason why at a decently organised event you would have a problematic rush on any particular area of the ground and I see no reason why rain would be particularly problematic either. I don't know where this idea has come from or where the evidence behind it comes from either - it would be good to have that explained. I don't even think you'd need to sell different tickets for the Cowshed and Sinclair Street end. You'd just have to manage the areas and flow of people. Unless I'm missing something (which, if I am, I wish they'd explain), there's a non-existent problem that's been invented here.
  8. The smaller central gantry was a big improvement on what went there before, that was helpful last night. There's no ladies toilet or catering in the Sinclair Street end, that's probably the immediate issue there. But I don't see why you can't have stewards restricting the access between the Cowshed and Sinclair Street end (it has been done before). As much as fans might want to be dry on a terrible day, we've never had an issue with fans choosing to cram in too tight over getting wet. The fact of the matter is that getting a bit wet in the rain is actually far more pleasant than being too tightly squeezed under the Cowshed. I think the overall question surrounds finding the comfortable capacity to allow for a good balance. I mean, what happens on a beautifully sunny day when we're shooting towards the Sinclair Street end? Or if there happens to be a penalty shootout at that end. You could make plenty of cases for fans wanting to be in different parts of the ground at different times. We have to have plans in place to manage those situations. There also needs to be some trust in the fact that spectators know to choose the area which isn't full. If you go to a concert you know that you can't all rush towards the stage - there are plenty of events where you have to manage where people go and have some trust that they won't all go to the same place. As long as you don't actively funnel them all there, you'll be fine.
  9. Cammy Blues' knack of being exactly where we need him to be is outstanding. Imrie obviously knows he can trust him to do that. And the way he played that bouncing, spinning ball right into Oakley's path for the second goal shouldn't be underestimated either.
  10. So if we get through and get a home draw in the quarter final, we only get a big crowd if there's no rain in the forecast? Or if we're in a playoff final, our capacity could be severely restricted by a rainy day? Only a couple of years ago we had restricted movement between the Cowshed and Sinclair Street end. We could have a larger capacity with that type of restricted movement in place. There's really no trust in football fans, is there.
  11. That's wild. I wonder how many cameras do they have in those areas. And I assume they must be using the far end of the cowshed for the presenters again. The Sinclair Street must hold about 1500 usually. Doesn't seem like there's going to be much space in the cowshed at all. Can't imagine the BBC is going to get a very good reception tonight if they've denied us that much space. We had over 12,000* at Cappielow for a televised game 25 years ago. *or 14000 or 13500 or 15000. I can't find a reliable attendance figure for that game.
  12. What hasn't made sense to me for a while is why the the barriers in the Cowshed haven't been moved back to where they were before they put up the banner to separate fans when they had the away fans in the far end of the Cowshed for a while. There must be a capacity of over 1000 in the unused area of the Cowshed. Which, being covered, would be very handy to use. If that's the case then it seems likely that the total capacity of the Cowshed/Sinclair St. areas has been reduced by at least 2000 for tonight. That should, as you say, still leave around a 5000 capacity in total for the home support. So it seems strange that it would be limited at this point. And I do feel for anyone who was planning to buy a physical ticket tonight - not a great point to be putting out that message.
  13. I'd certainly like to think that this is the case, but managers also know that their stock can rise and fall very quickly in football and opportunities to make a move up can be hard to come by. I'd hope that Dougie would see an opportunity here in the next few months that would outweigh the risk of Ross County in their current state, and I'd also hope that Ross County will sets their sights elsewhere, but I could understand if Dougie was tempted by a move like that.
  14. Ross County are exactly the type of team that I'd be worried about losing Dougie to. Teams like Aberdeen, Hibs, and Hearts don't come looking for managers from clubs like ours. Dougie would need to establish Morton in the Premiership before they'd look at him. Clubs like Ross County would be his most likely option of a step up. There's maybe a chance of League Two in England or something like that, but I'm not sure how realistic that would be either.
  15. We've not actually had a really big game. My, pretty non scientific, calculations are that it could take up to 2 hours to fill the Cowshed/Sinclair Street (based partly on it being about 40 minutes to get it about a third full on Saturday). Efficiency could cut that by a bit, but by this point we should all know that a full house would be a disaster - I mean, they always were a bit awkward (thinking of Dundee utd and Peterhead games) but I'm not sure how it works be manageable at all now.
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