alloa v morton

[TRVMP]

Is full-time Football all its cracked up to be?

 

Those who are full time players would have set their sights higher than Morton, and those who are good enough will already be there, therefore the only players we'd be likely to attract would be the also-rans and those whose careers are on the decline or players in the twilight of their careers.

 

The alternatives:

 

Become the biggest and best part-time outfit in Scotland, attracting the best part-time players from throughout the country.

 

Create a brand new mindset. What Morton were in the past is no longer the Morton of the future. We are not some social club for any passing journeymen en route to ****ing QotS just because they stay up the Broomy. If you don't have something positive to contribute then get tae... Whether it's players, managers, directors, office staff, suppliers etc.

 

Scouting for young players - it shouldn't be confined to the Inverclyde area - Glasgow, Ayrshire, Renfrewshire and Lanarkshire have a combined population of about 2.5 million, there are loads of school teams, youth teams etc who don't get scouted by the bigger clubs - make an effort with them.

 

Use the employment laws to our advantage - this may be changed depending on the political climate and the outcome of Brexit, however over the past few years there were opportunities to go to Poland, Hungary or the Czech Republic and scout out a squad of good honest inexpensive pros who would canter this level of Football. This would be a good stepping stone to the SPFL Premier, FA Premier League, Championship or League One clubs who regularly scout players from this league.

 

I remember a few years ago Nick posting something similar, only without the prescription - basically saying it was tough for Morton, being at the lowest end of the FT game, and thus outbid for some players by those PT teams who could provide a decent whack to someone while letting them work 9-5. All very true. But the table doesn't lie. You're simply not going to the Premiership with guys like Rory McAlister, good though they may be. At the end of the day, if we aspire to anything above our current station, we need to be a professional football club. If on the other hand we want to be some neither-one-thing-nor-the-other "community" outfit who just happen to have a league place, we can officially go PT and just be Airdrie.

 

Put it this way. There's a reason Livi went FT. There's a reason Ayr started the season strongly, and it's not that they have the cream of the PT players.

[dunning1874]

The absolute stick the manager gets whilst individuals make ridiculous mistakes, week in - week out; laughable.

 

This same point has been raised after other defeats, ICT at home a notable example.

 

It is of course correct to point out that Johansson wasn't the one who let Trouten waltz through the defence effortlessly to get into the box or was far too slow in coming off his line for the penalty, and Johansson wasn't one of the several players making a howler for the shambles of a second goal, just as against Caley Thistle it wasn't Johansson who came off his line too slowly or let his man get his goalside for the first goal, and it wasn't him who misjudged the flight of a ball, let it bounce, let his man get goalside and hauled him down when he had a clear goalscoring opportunity for the red card and penalty. All of those are horrendous individual errors which the players are to blame for.

 

However, the suggestion that this makes Johansson blameless simply doesn't follow logically at all. He's not the one making goalkeeping or defensive errors, but individual mistakes don't happen in a vacuum. Our abject lack of defensive organisation, which is 100% his responsibility, both makes these individual errors more likely and exacerbates them when they happens. So those howlers against ICT are outwith his control, but that doesn't mean we can't ask why our midfield was such a shapeless mess in the first place that both incidents came from one pass which went straight through our midfield like they weren't there, offering the defence no protection, and why the shape of the defence itself meant one defensive error had opponents in on goal with no hint of other defenders covering.

 

Likewise yesterday, Johansson wasn't the one who let Trouten go for the penalty and it was Scully who took a million years to get out to him, but while him finding so much space in the first instance is unacceptable on the part of Waddell & Buchanan, it's also a consequence of the shape, the lack of defensive organisation and Johansson's failure to spot this and do anything about it before it cost us a goal. Alloa changed their shape at half-time looking to exploit our back three, they routinely found acres of space in and around our box and had been in total control of the game for the whole second half with our midfield vanishing again as we sat deeper and deeper, inviting pressure. Johansson changes absolutely nothing, their attackers continue finding space easily and eventually it results in a penalty and equaliser.

 

Only then does Johansson make a substitution, after the goal happens. That's Jim McInally levels of reactive management, when any decent manager should be identifying the way the game is going and changing it before we entirely predictably concede as a result. Naturally though, he can't even get the reactive substitution right and as with the last defeat to Alloa and his subs when we were still level, his changes only contrive to make us even worse. Removing Telfer who had been our only outball on the rare occasion we made it out of our own half in favour of Thomson only meant the ball was sticking even less and the ball kept coming back and back at the defence with ever more frequency as we struggled to clear our lines.

 

Then the shambolic second goal happens to lose it; you can make a very good argument that no manager can possibly legislate for such a ridiculous string of errors, but ultimately this does come back to our lack of basic organisation facilitating these errors and that's Johansson's responsibility. It comes from defending a set-piece, which has been an organisational problem every single week since Johansson took over with unmarked runners and failure to deal with second balls in our own box being the norm. Right enough, we lose the header at the back post and then when the second ball drops to a Morton player we fail to clear our lines.

 

You obviously can't expect to win the ball from every defensive set-piece, but the opposition win them with such alarming regularity that you can again put this down to organisation, a lack of preparation for these situations and that's once again at Johansson's door, even though you can't blame him for the nonsense individual errors that followed losing the first header.

 

Alloa are obviously a decent side who are on a good run, they regulary take control of the midfield the way they did yesterday and use that as a platform to get results. No one should be expecting us to turn up and take an effortless three points on account of them being a part-time side, as some people bizarrely seem to. The reality is though that we've played them twice under Johansson, and twice we've lost the game due to him being completely tactically outclassed by Goodwin, with the margin of defeat flattering us on both occasions. 

 

This. We have some of the worst forwards in the league, error-prone fullbacks and both of our keepers can't find a man even 50% of the time. Folk are hounding the manager because we're not playing Dortmund football - it's nonsense.

 

As for this, the only nonsense is suggesting our squad is actually that bad. Scully is obviously a joke figure who has no business being anywhere near a professional football club, but otherwise, no, I'm not having that the manager is just so completely hamstrung by the squad he inherited that he's powerless to stop us not just losing but being played off the park by a side containing the likes of Iain Flannigan, Alan Trouten and Scott Taggart.

 

Good managers make the squad they've got become more than the sum of their parts. That's what Jim Goodwin is doing. You'll note that when everyone says Johansson's hands are tied and we can't possibly hope to do better no one ever mentions the midfield, and rightly so because that would be laughable when we have players the calibre of Millar and Tidser available. Yet in both defeats to Alloa it's been taking control of the midfield and utterly negating us there that has been the crucial factor for them in being the better side and controlling the game.

 

Why is a midfield containing players like Flannigan dominating against one with superior players like Millar? The most logical explanation is simply that one has a manager doing a good job in getting more than the sum of the parts of his squad, while one has a manager doing a bad job and getting less out of the players at his disposal than he should. Tidser was anonymous again yesterday - we all remember how good he was at the start of the season before Johansson got his hands on him.

 

People can talk about the fickle nature of football fans, how we've just had two good results before this and it's therefore harsh to criticise the manager to this extent, but this goes both ways as well. If you're going to say fans are fickle and unjustified in criticising Johansson after two wins, then you're wanting to have your cake and eat it here. If those games undermine the notion that Johansson is actually such a dud, then the fact we are on occasion capable of executing a coherent game plan and getting excellent results like beating Ross County or winning at Palmerston also undermines the idea that this squad of players is so hopeless no manager can be expected to get results with them. That they're more regularly turning in performances like yesterday is an indictment on Johansson's ability to get performances out of what he has, not on the ability of the players.

[LargsTON]

Goodwin hates us and he is a **** so naw **** him.

Who cares if he hates us. I hate us too.

[Madton]

Absolutely perplexed by JJs interviews these days. Happy for the most part and blames Waddell for the defeat basically. It was a bizarre goal and hanging Kerr out to dry for the defeat is extremely harsh IMO.

 

Thought we deserved something, seriously??? I can think of one worthwhile save early in the second half from a Tumilty shot but even then it was very comfortable!

 

If he had come out and said not good enough, didn't create anything, didnt deserve even a point etc you could at least relate to that and know that he will strive to improve it but he actually thinks that performance is acceptable...the football is feckin awful JJ!

 

He really isn't doing himself any favours. I was in the camp of he needs the window to bring his own players in etc to see what he can do with his own team but if he thinks that standard is acceptable, he can do one!

[TONofmemories]

We're run like a fucking sweetie shop and until tbat changes, we won't see the corner being turned, or the surge that the likes of livi/hamilton etc have experienced.

 

That sweetie shop mentality will be know to prospective signing targets as well, which I suspect will put some off.

 

We're about as tinpot as they come sadly.

[TONofmemories]

Absolutely perplexed by JJs interviews these days. Happy for the most part and blames Waddell for the defeat basically. It was a bizarre goal and hanging Kerr out to dry for the defeat is extremely harsh IMO.

 

Thought we deserved something, seriously??? I can think of one worthwhile save early in the second half from a Tumilty shot but even then it was very comfortable!

 

If he had come out and said not good enough, didn't create anything, didnt deserve even a point etc you could at least relate to that and know that he will strive to improve it but he actually thinks that performance is acceptable...the football is feckin awful JJ!

 

He really isn't doing himself any favours. I was in the camp of he needs the window to bring his own players in etc to see what he can do with his own team but if he thinks that standard is acceptable, he can do one!

Regrets? No it's a good laugh isn't it!

[so72]

At this point it's probably naive as ****, but I'm hoping that the unexpected departure of the Snake means that he's just writing off this season as a mid-table one and has something planned for the summer. However, he's probably disillusioned after that happened, and frankly I don't blame him. So yeah, unfortunately you're probably right, next year will be much the same.

Hopefully we are in new ownership by next season. Seems to be the perpetual state of a Morton fan - look for every glimmer of hope and wait for the club to stamp it out

[TONofmemories]

They didnt really worry me initially, but the Easdales concern me slightly. Imagine trying to get those cunts out the club if it all went Pete Tong?

[JimJam]

https://twitter.com/AlloaAthleticFC/status/1084385382920269829?s=19&fbclid=IwAR28jv4Gy30fM4Hm39XA1EKV6GbHfSJ9d_XOUb09ZL6Omcdo4HjEJwtXCDw

[Stevie Aitken's Love Child]

  That goal is an absolute shambles. What the hell was McKeown doing? I was convinced it must have deflected off their player but it just looks like he totally miscues it, and even then, Waddell has to deal with it.

 

Shambles.

[so72]

Is it not going for a GK? Maybe we do actually have some of the worst players in this league 🙄

[TopCat]

This same point has been raised after other defeats, ICT at home a notable example.

 

It is of course correct to point out that Johansson wasn't the one who let Trouten waltz through the defence effortlessly to get into the box or was far too slow in coming off his line for the penalty, and Johansson wasn't one of the several players making a howler for the shambles of a second goal, just as against Caley Thistle it wasn't Johansson who came off his line too slowly or let his man get his goalside for the first goal, and it wasn't him who misjudged the flight of a ball, let it bounce, let his man get goalside and hauled him down when he had a clear goalscoring opportunity for the red card and penalty. All of those are horrendous individual errors which the players are to blame for.

 

However, the suggestion that this makes Johansson blameless simply doesn't follow logically at all. He's not the one making goalkeeping or defensive errors, but individual mistakes don't happen in a vacuum. Our abject lack of defensive organisation, which is 100% his responsibility, both makes these individual errors more likely and exacerbates them when they happens. So those howlers against ICT are outwith his control, but that doesn't mean we can't ask why our midfield was such a shapeless mess in the first place that both incidents came from one pass which went straight through our midfield like they weren't there, offering the defence no protection, and why the shape of the defence itself meant one defensive error had opponents in on goal with no hint of other defenders covering.

 

Likewise yesterday, Johansson wasn't the one who let Trouten go for the penalty and it was Scully who took a million years to get out to him, but while him finding so much space in the first instance is unacceptable on the part of Waddell & Buchanan, it's also a consequence of the shape, the lack of defensive organisation and Johansson's failure to spot this and do anything about it before it cost us a goal. Alloa changed their shape at half-time looking to exploit our back three, they routinely found acres of space in and around our box and had been in total control of the game for the whole second half with our midfield vanishing again as we sat deeper and deeper, inviting pressure. Johansson changes absolutely nothing, their attackers continue finding space easily and eventually it results in a penalty and equaliser.

 

Only then does Johansson make a substitution, after the goal happens. That's Jim McInally levels of reactive management, when any decent manager should be identifying the way the game is going and changing it before we entirely predictably concede as a result. Naturally though, he can't even get the reactive substitution right and as with the last defeat to Alloa and his subs when we were still level, his changes only contrive to make us even worse. Removing Telfer who had been our only outball on the rare occasion we made it out of our own half in favour of Thomson only meant the ball was sticking even less and the ball kept coming back and back at the defence with ever more frequency as we struggled to clear our lines.

 

Then the shambolic second goal happens to lose it; you can make a very good argument that no manager can possibly legislate for such a ridiculous string of errors, but ultimately this does come back to our lack of basic organisation facilitating these errors and that's Johansson's responsibility. It comes from defending a set-piece, which has been an organisational problem every single week since Johansson took over with unmarked runners and failure to deal with second balls in our own box being the norm. Right enough, we lose the header at the back post and then when the second ball drops to a Morton player we fail to clear our lines.

 

You obviously can't expect to win the ball from every defensive set-piece, but the opposition win them with such alarming regularity that you can again put this down to organisation, a lack of preparation for these situations and that's once again at Johansson's door, even though you can't blame him for the nonsense individual errors that followed losing the first header.

 

Alloa are obviously a decent side who are on a good run, they regulary take control of the midfield the way they did yesterday and use that as a platform to get results. No one should be expecting us to turn up and take an effortless three points on account of them being a part-time side, as some people bizarrely seem to. The reality is though that we've played them twice under Johansson, and twice we've lost the game due to him being completely tactically outclassed by Goodwin, with the margin of defeat flattering us on both occasions.

 

 

As for this, the only nonsense is suggesting our squad is actually that bad. Scully is obviously a joke figure who has no business being anywhere near a professional football club, but otherwise, no, I'm not having that the manager is just so completely hamstrung by the squad he inherited that he's powerless to stop us not just losing but being played off the park by a side containing the likes of Iain Flannigan, Alan Trouten and Scott Taggart.

 

Good managers make the squad they've got become more than the sum of their parts. That's what Jim Goodwin is doing. You'll note that when everyone says Johansson's hands are tied and we can't possibly hope to do better no one ever mentions the midfield, and rightly so because that would be laughable when we have players the calibre of Millar and Tidser available. Yet in both defeats to Alloa it's been taking control of the midfield and utterly negating us there that has been the crucial factor for them in being the better side and controlling the game.

 

Why is a midfield containing players like Flannigan dominating against one with superior players like Millar? The most logical explanation is simply that one has a manager doing a good job in getting more than the sum of the parts of his squad, while one has a manager doing a bad job and getting less out of the players at his disposal than he should. Tidser was anonymous again yesterday - we all remember how good he was at the start of the season before Johansson got his hands on him.

 

People can talk about the fickle nature of football fans, how we've just had two good results before this and it's therefore harsh to criticise the manager to this extent, but this goes both ways as well. If you're going to say fans are fickle and unjustified in criticising Johansson after two wins, then you're wanting to have your cake and eat it here. If those games undermine the notion that Johansson is actually such a dud, then the fact we are on occasion capable of executing a coherent game plan and getting excellent results like beating Ross County or winning at Palmerston also undermines the idea that this squad of players is so hopeless no manager can be expected to get results with them. That they're more regularly turning in performances like yesterday is an indictment on Johansson's ability to get performances out of what he has, not on the ability of the players.

I'm not saying the management team are blameless - our defensive organisation has been horrible in certain games. Mistakes like the 3 howlers in that OG are symptoms of players not having confidence in what they're doing.

 

Our central midfield players are really good but I don't think it's as straightforward as expecting them to win a 50/50 with their opposition. There's absolutely no convincing options in front of them or out wide. It's making us really predictable and that's why we're losing the midfield imo.

 

Bob McHugh is running his guts out but he's just not capable of leading the line in this league. If Johnstone, Bell and McLean had worked out I think we would be in a completely different position.

[TONofmemories]

Mclean might have worked out if A. We played a system that suited him and B. He actually got a game.

[AyrshireTon]

Mclean might have worked out if A. We played a system that suited him and B. He actually got a game.

According to the F*lk*rk fans on P&B, he looked poor yesterday.

[TONofmemories]

Hence might.

[EanieMeany]

Found it odd that he never got a chance as one of the two forwards when that was being dabbled with. Given that it wasn't/isn't exactly the world's most potent strike-force, his attributes were surely worth a try.

[Jamie_M]

https://twitter.com/AlloaAthleticFC/status/1084385382920269829?s=19&fbclid=IwAR28jv4Gy30fM4Hm39XA1EKV6GbHfSJ9d_XOUb09ZL6Omcdo4HjEJwtXCDw

How one 31 second clip sums up the entire last 30 years at Morton.

[JimJam]

How one 31 second clip sums up the entire last 30 years at Morton.

 

Changing it to black and white and adding the Keystone Cops soundtrack would make it spot on. 

[big B]

Yep, in relative terms (and absolute in Thistle's case) both have performed much better than Morton.

 

Lets face it though, Morton are by far and away the worst performing full-time club in the country: if we're ever to make any progress the entire attitude and make-up of the club needs to change immediately.

Until Rae sells the club we will never be anywhere near the top league he has no interest in taking the club there which is cheating the fans who do.

[TheGoon]

That goal Worse than the descriptions even made it sound. Dunning has said pretty much exactly what I would. Individual errors have cost us games but they’re much, much less likely to happen to teams who know what they’re supposed to be doing and have at least some confidence in it.