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Match Preview/Thread - Morton vs Hearts (Championship 20th April)


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When Michael Stewart said Gus McPherson would be scratching his head that we couldn’t score, then Marcus Fjortoft said we need to be more clinical in the final third, it just struck home that we don’t have any players who are capable of being clinical in front of goal. Being clinical implies that you are coldly executing a skill you already possess. 

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2 hours ago, DreamOakTree said:

 ...it just struck home that we don’t have any players who are capable of being clinical in front of goal.  

If only a Morton fans forum existed, I'm sure if there was they would have discussed this extensively in preseason and then in almost every match and team related thread all through the season.

If only...you had a fuckin brain.

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Wouldn't surprise me if Fjortoft's 2 goals this season is a more clinical strike rate than anyone else in the squad on a goals scored per minute on the pitch comparison.  Is our top scorer not on something like 4 or 5 goals?  Utterly disgraceful and the failure to address the problem at any time during the season is why were are in ninth place - all those draws where we could have sneaked a win are coming home to roost now.  Imagine if we had signed Jack Hamilton, but instead we got Sterling.

"Any nation given the opportunity to regain its national sovereignty and which then rejects it is so far beneath contempt that it is hard to put words to it."

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3 hours ago, Alibi said:

Wouldn't surprise me if Fjortoft's 2 goals this season is a more clinical strike rate than anyone else in the squad on a goals scored per minute on the pitch comparison.  Is our top scorer not on something like 4 or 5 goals?  Utterly disgraceful and the failure to address the problem at any time during the season is why were are in ninth place - all those draws where we could have sneaked a win are coming home to roost now.  Imagine if we had signed Jack Hamilton, but instead we got Sterling.

We tried to address it, it just clearly didn't work.

In hindsight, if we had brought in Gus at the start of Jan, I'm sure he would have trimmed and improved the squad and we would be in a much better position than we are now. Butler, Johnson and Sterling, what a waste of money that was.

We just need to hope Oliver, Orsi and Muirhead can get us over the line.

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19 minutes ago, Madton said:

We tried to address it,

'Tried' doing a lot of heavy lifting in that statement.

We went from a position of wanting the squad significantly cut rather than bringing anyone in, going months without a real manager, then letting the fitness coach we inexplicably had in charge be responsible for bringing in some ringers without any scrutiny.

We never spent a bean of the government grant windfall on the team and we were one of the few clubs, if not the only one, who came out of the window in a worse position than we went into it.

Fuck me if that constitutes trying.

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I noted the begging bowl was out for a print-your-own virtual ticket and raffle.

If only there was a £500k taxpayer-funded govt grant to help the club through the current predicament.

The Raes think some of us button up the back.

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9 hours ago, Alibi said:

Wouldn't surprise me if Fjortoft's 2 goals this season is a more clinical strike rate than anyone else in the squad on a goals scored per minute on the pitch comparison.  Is our top scorer not on something like 4 or 5 goals?  Utterly disgraceful and the failure to address the problem at any time during the season is why were are in ninth place - all those draws where we could have sneaked a win are coming home to roost now.  Imagine if we had signed Jack Hamilton, but instead we got Sterling.

In all competitions, it's this, with nobody else especially close. I've put MacIver in brackets since he scored just the one.

Blues        340
McGuffie    360
(MacIver)    423
Nesbitt        440*
Oliver        454
Orsi        456
Muirhead    554

I prefer league goals as a basis of comparison, and that produces the following:

McGuffie    235
Orsi        358
Oliver        376
Blues        401
Nesbitt        444*

*one of these was a league penalty. Can't be arsed checking how many Cup goals were penalties.

With, again, nobody especially close after that.

5 hours ago, Jamie_M said:

'Tried' doing a lot of heavy lifting in that statement.

We went from a position of wanting the squad significantly cut rather than bringing anyone in, going months without a real manager, then letting the fitness coach we inexplicably had in charge be responsible for bringing in some ringers without any scrutiny.

We never spent a bean of the government grant windfall on the team and we were one of the few clubs, if not the only one, who came out of the window in a worse position than we went into it.

Fuck me if that constitutes trying.

I'd add to this that we let Hopkin built a ludicrously imbalanced squad, to the extent that even with the January moves, our current manager has pointed out that we have far too many accomplished players on the bench. The squad is still too big and arguably too expensive, while having glaring weaknesses in a key position. Basically we couldn't have got it more wrong if we tried.

EOho8Pw.png

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1 hour ago, TRVMP said:

In all competitions, it's this, with nobody else especially close. I've put MacIver in brackets since he scored just the one.

Blues        340
McGuffie    360
(MacIver)    423
Nesbitt        440*
Oliver        454
Orsi        456
Muirhead    554

I prefer league goals as a basis of comparison, and that produces the following:

McGuffie    235
Orsi        358
Oliver        376
Blues        401
Nesbitt        444*

*one of these was a league penalty. Can't be arsed checking how many Cup goals were penalties.

With, again, nobody especially close after that.

I'd add to this that we let Hopkin built a ludicrously imbalanced squad, to the extent that even with the January moves, our current manager has pointed out that we have far too many accomplished players on the bench. The squad is still too big and arguably too expensive, while having glaring weaknesses in a key position. Basically we couldn't have got it more wrong if we tried.

McGuffie comes out of that well, and a couple of his strikes could be described as “clinical”. Why then is he not getting a start under McPherson? As someone suggested, play Strapp at left back, drop McGinty and play McGuffie at left mid/wing.

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I don't know why McGuffie isn't getting picked. And while I'm not knocking him at all - quite the opposite, I'm knocking our recruitment in other positions - if this is our hope for scoring goals when there are two games left in the season...

image.png

... then we absolutely deserve everything we get.

We're averaging comfortably under a goal a game this season. If McGuffie is the answer, it's a fucked-up question.

edit: And McGinty is ever-present, and even if there was a chance of dropping him, they're not going to do so after a clean sheet against Hearts.

EOho8Pw.png

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Our record in signing/developing strikers has been shocking for 20 years with a few making their mark in Divs 1 and 2 but virtually nothing in the championship.

I've lost count of the number of managers we've had in that time but all of them have failed miserably to sign a consistent goal threat who was not a loanee.

This year has been the worst by far with that imposter Hopkins and his sidekick saddling us with lower league jobbers who couldn't get a game for any self respecting lower league side. 

I hope that someone can show something up at Arbroath but you live in hope and die in despair with Morton.

 

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Hopkin was just such a disappointment as manager, and his legacy of an unbalanced squad was not dealt with after he left - perhaps to be expected as we had no manager or anyone with authority to make sensible decisions.  Had we signed nobody else apart from a half decent striker (Hamilton who signed for Arbroath would have been one of the best options), we would have been safe.  Mcpherson clearly thought Mcginn would make a difference but he hasn't (in fact he cost us a couple of goals against Inverness).  We have one last throw of the dice on Friday to avoid the playoffs - I reckon we could all name the best team to pick, and there wouldn't be more than at total of 12 names used by anyone in our entire support in their starting line-up..  It's Arbroath ffs, not Bayern Munich.  Just get out there and give them a doing.  Play like you did against playing Motherwell and Hearts.  Keep the ball on the ground and pass the ball ffs.

"Any nation given the opportunity to regain its national sovereignty and which then rejects it is so far beneath contempt that it is hard to put words to it."

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