dunning1874

The issue is jumping straight to the nuclear option every time. There's an irony in me saying that when I'm not exactly slow to overreact and call for people's heads myself on various issues, and I think we all know that if it hadn't been for Dalrada's objections and their deal being conditional on certain individuals remaining in place then there would have been resounding votes of no confidence in Laird and at least two GMFC board members in the summer, but we can't have heads rolling in response to absolutely everything. When mistakes happen people need to be transparent about them and willing to be held accountable for them, which was the main issue in the summer with the embargo. The institutional lack of transparency from the GMFC board went so far as to be dishonest and actively deceitful. Provided we don't get a repeat of that we can't be jumping straight to calls for votes of no confidence in both boards every time something goes wrong; the MCT board have already held their hands up and apologised for not objecting to the Laird statement. It also consists of six people who were the only six who put their names forward when a whole new board was needed in the summer. If we then had a vote of no confidence in all six of them, do we then spend another however many months with a few people who've reluctantly put themselves forward who didn't want to do so a few months ago, needing to learn the ropes with no continuity from a previous board to teach them? We need to take a breath here and allow mistakes to be learned from, we can't have a whole turnover of the board every six months. I do think we've seen that patience with GMFC boards in the past, including when you were on it Gordon. I strongly disagreed with the decision to give Gus MacPherson a two year deal (and that was proven to be a dreadful mistake) but I didn't call for anyone's head to roll for it. I disagreed with the lack of transparency over who MacPherson's line manager actually was and which board members had any responsibility for the footballing side of the club, when this was again a time the club had no General Manager, Chief Executive or similar. I disagreed with the related lack of transparency over who approved the signing of Alan Lithgow, but I wasn't shouting sack the board over any of those things. People had to have the chance to make mistakes, and after making them and learning from them the overall direction of the club ultimately became a more positive one with a competitive team on the park while living within our means, with improved transparency in things like eg the videos with Michael Harkins going over accounts. Giving room for the current GMFC board to make mistakes is a much harder ask than giving it to the MCT board when there's already a huge lack of trust in some of those individuals caused by their own previous actions. Various issues over the last 7 months suggest the institutionalised contempt for the MCT membership & supporters as a whole which defined Laird's tenure, which caused a culture of secrecy then blew up in their faces so terribly with the embargo, hasn't gone away. That we now have a Finance Director joining the board and are recruiting for a General Manager doesn't excuse the 7 months in which the club has appeared to be a rudderless ship without anyone in those positions since a deal was agreed where we were promised improved governance, or the radio silence about those roles throughout those months. The release of Laird's statement without a shred of evidence to support his claims suggests contempt for the support remains the default position. That suggests some people who've been given a second chance to learn from their mistakes haven't learned a thing, but the time to account for that will be a public meeting. I'll hear them out on how they account for the governance of the club actually getting even worse when it was supposed to improve, how it's going to improve now Laird is gone and why we should trust them to be part of it. It's only fitting that this conversation takes place alongside discussions on the future relationship with Dalrada, when this has all happened in a time where we actually had an effective Dalrada majority, with 2 Dalrada reps out of 4 directors then the Chairman being a defacto Dalrada representative who only kept his supposedly powerless position because Dalrada insisted on having him there.

This is the league table since Imrie left us. While Airdrie being one of the three teams who haven't been shite is a concern, it's just been a fundamentally silly division over this spell. It shows how big a difference a couple of wins will make if Murray can have a new manager bounce.

'Sonny Hart' has returned to 'Farnborough' who are battling relegation from the 'National League South'.

We've had far poorer players than Adeloye and will have more, but ultimately he just didn't offer enough. Brophy continuing to struggle for fitness yet having more goals than Adeloye in fewer games tells its own story.

Confirmed, game off.

Remembering Ian Murray's ridiculously good start as Dumbarton manager, which was an even better turnaround than Imrie with us, the weather was so bad they didn't play for a month after he took over. He basically got a pre-season with them. Trying to clutch at positives there, but ultimately we don't want midweek fixtures piling up and the first game being a tough away Scottish cup tie against the leaders of the league below instead of a home league game wouldn't be ideal either.

He's still young enough that finding the level he's good enough for just now, getting games under his belt there and growing in confidence could see him developing enough to climb back up the ladder again in a few seasons, but right now he's miles off the standard of the Championship. Encouraged by how ruthless Murray is being here.

Daily Record have us interested in Cale Loughrey, Canadian centre back at Hamilton. They signed him on amateur terms (officially at least) in the summer. No idea how good he is, but encouraged by Murray looking at a centre back. Considering that he knows Corr already, that makes me think he'll be following Hart out the door.

Seven minutes and only one "like I said". This'll take some getting used to.

Delighted to end up with a good manager at the end of it all, but the whole process throws up further serious questions about the competence of a club board who are supposed to be delivering improved governance. With Miller remaining in charge yesterday and Murray presumably taking over from training tomorrow, that was 40 days of an interim management team, where we seemingly chopped and changed between which one of Miller & Davies was picking the team. The results throughout that spell have been abject. In the league, P5 W1 D1 L3 F5 A11. We also had two draws with lower league opposition in cups, with one win and one loss on penalties. It's been an appalling run of form. While I'm very glad we've ended up with Murray at the end of it, particularly when literally every other candidate linked by any credible journalist would have been a comedy choice, you do have to ask if results would have continued to be so bad if we'd made the appointment in a reasonable timeframe. Taking five weeks and seven games is a ridiculous amount of time. The whole process has appeared to be a shambles. Just deciding not to bother even looking at a recruitment process for the first three weeks, presumably because they were hoping they could sit back and do nothing, the interim management team would have good results and they could twist Davies' arm into taking it permanently off the back of that. When results were instead utter shite only then, three weeks in, did they decide it would be worth their time to draw up a shortlist, which they announced in a deliberately ambiguous statement that meant no one had a clue which one of Davies or Miller was now the caretaker. Then it still dragged out for another three games, with the winless run growing ever longer and any hope of getting clear of the relegation battle vanishing. While poor governance of off-field issues should rightly take a central focus as that's an existential threat to the club, the incompetence on football matters is sabotaging us on the park as well.

Yeah, he saw basically as soon as it went to 2-1 that O'Halloran's lack of energy couldn't be sustained so put Moffat on for him to give us someone who covered more ground defensively. That was an entirely logical decision, then he undermined it minutes later by putting Shaw on for Brophy, leaving us in the exact same position of carrying a winger who is utterly useless defensively. That was decisive with Shaw's absolute abdication of responsibility for the winner, we'd genuinely have been better off with nobody there than him drawing arrows for Watt for where to go and the angle to shoot from. The first task for Murray is to melt that waster down for glue/send him to Kirkcaldy, whichever's cheaper.

On the balance of play you'd say Partick were largely controlling possession and have spent much more time in our half than we have in theirs, but ultimately they've created nothing while we could be 4-0 up. The first 5-10 minutes after going 1-0 up especially I thought we were a bit too deep, but it's proven to be the right approach since. The counter attack is absolutely shredding them. If they continue to have this much of the ball they are going to score and you know it will be instant panic if it comes back to 2-1, we'll probably be 3-2 down within 10 minutes of the first, but we could have the game out of sight if we're a bit more ruthless.

https://gmfc.net/ian-murray-arrives-as-new-first-team-manager/

Even if in the extremely unlikely event he wanted to, Crawford Rae's running of the club was shambolic, like Douglas before him. That John Laird contrived to be worse doesn't mean we should be welcoming Crawford back with open arms. A huge part of the appeal of the takeover in the first place was the opportunity to move on from decades of incompetent governance of the club. Morton had been a laughing stock for years and it was the mismanagement of the Raes that caused that reputation. While there were always things to criticise, things had started improving off the park after MCT took over and before Laird arrived; getting better on the park while consistently breaking even off it was a massive achievement. That we've now slid right back to the "typical Morton" of 10 years ago who are roundly seen as a joke across Scottish football with the club once again appearing to have the same contempt for the fanbase that defined the Rae era is massively disappointing and hopefully Laird's departure is an opportunity for a reset, but Crawford Rae is the last person I'd consider a good candidate to fix that.