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Squad for next Season


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3 hours ago, Toby said:

At least there’s one positive to come from today, then.

How in any walk of life is being one or the other remotely acceptable. Two cheeks of the same arse. 

If her being labelled one when she's the other has pissed her off then fk her. 

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We've got 5 or 6 players who very much feel like are here in absence of a reserve or development team (certainly Easdale, McGrattan, King, McGregor, and Garrity - maybe also Hynes). I can understand doing something like this in the sense of retaining some decent young players, showing that there is a pathway to the first team, and adding some cheaper depth to the squad by using local players. I'm not sure about the selection process of these players. Easdale and McGrattan are certainly both in the older end of the scale here to be decent future prospects. It would also have been helpful to have a goalkeeper among these players. 

What wouldn't make any sense would be to only a 13 player squad outside of those 'reserves.' That's what we currently have. I've been assuming that there are at least 4 or 5 more players to come, and we do need at least a full 18 outside of those reserves. It feels strange that we don't seem to be actively having a look at options on trial or being linked with anyone else. I'm really hoping that we haven't started to build a squad and have had to stop because she funding hasn't come through. 4 good signings and we could be very competitive in a tight league this season. As it is, it would be a real struggle. 

There's still time to bring in some good signings, I hope they're coming at some point. 

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As others have said, that sort of public airing of grievances really isn't on, although Imrie is hardly in a position himself to complain about someone going off on one in public right now.

I actually do think it's understandable for Jacobs to be pissed off despite last season. Gillespie will rightly get a chance to prove himself and be judged on his performances for Morton as all new signings do, but ultimately his recent career trajectory of not being good enough for Ayr in the Championship or Raith in League One doesn't scream of a guy who should be getting a start for a Championship club. He didn't end up in League Two because of the money Queen's Park were throwing around when he had better offers like some others, he ended up there because the only full time club that wanted him was at that level, and he again failed to hold down a place in the team once they were in League One. I think it's reasonable to be a bit miffed at being kept out the team by someone with that recent career trajectory, and I hope a new season and new system means a clean slate for someone like Jacobs, who has previously shown that he is capable of performing well in this division, rather than being judged on the three starts he made under Imrie last season.

What Jacobs obviously needs to do though is earn his place back with his performances whenever he gets a start again, rather than having family complain about it on social media.

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Brian Wake my Lord, Brian Wake

Brian Wake my Lord, Brian Wake

Brian Wake my Lord, Brian Wake

Oh Lord, Brian Wake

 

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4 hours ago, SpoonTon said:

We've got 5 or 6 players who very much feel like are here in absence of a reserve or development team (certainly Easdale, McGrattan, King, McGregor, and Garrity - maybe also Hynes). I can understand doing something like this in the sense of retaining some decent young players, showing that there is a pathway to the first team, and adding some cheaper depth to the squad by using local players. I'm not sure about the selection process of these players. Easdale and McGrattan are certainly both in the older end of the scale here to be decent future prospects. It would also have been helpful to have a goalkeeper among these players. 

What wouldn't make any sense would be to only a 13 player squad outside of those 'reserves.' That's what we currently have. I've been assuming that there are at least 4 or 5 more players to come, and we do need at least a full 18 outside of those reserves. It feels strange that we don't seem to be actively having a look at options on trial or being linked with anyone else. I'm really hoping that we haven't started to build a squad and have had to stop because she funding hasn't come through. 4 good signings and we could be very competitive in a tight league this season. As it is, it would be a real struggle. 

There's still time to bring in some good signings, I hope they're coming at some point. 

I think this gets to the core of why the the one sub thing was a problem: it wasn't so much that there was only one sub (which was dodgy enough in itself), so much as it laid bare what we have. We really shouldn't be considering the young boys first team players, they should be extra, but instead they're a huge part of what's being passed off as a squad.

Dougie has said the club want "more youth players" in the squad this season, which is perhaps the most troubling element in all of this and which suggests this is actually what we're going to be left with. Even if more players do appear, there's still a lot of questions about how things have unfolded.

One of the biggest questions is what Dougie was told he was getting. No matter what the circumstances were or are he's made some really poor choices (offering Blues and Oliver new deals) and a couple of very suspect ones (Gillespie and Quitongo); even with Baird, I felt at the time that it was a signing that meant the other defender would need to be somebody of a higher calibre. Between the renewals and most of the signings, there's been that sense with all of them, that each one was meaning the next one would need to be better if we want a higher standard of team than last season. Having a low budget isn't an excuse for any of that imo: in fact, it makes it look like extremely dubious decision-making.

Even if there was more money available and there is going to be 3/4 high quality additions, I still wouldn't find much of the above convincing even as squad players, so it's hard to really know what's going on. Having said all this, I trust Dougie the manager implicitly, but at the same time...it's his team now, it's no longer the case he's having to make the best of what he's inherited and that represents a different type of challenge and it appears he's not made it any easier for himself.

Has Dougie been told one thing then another? Had the goalposts shifted on him? Even leaving aside reservations with the players he's chosen, it seems unlikely he's stumbled into spending all his money without realising so something changing seems a plausible explanation, but who knows.

On the bit in bold, I think we all know why Easdale continues to lumber around but I'd like to see McGrattan getting more of an opportunity and was a bit surprised he didn't really get many as last season went on. There were plenty of times we were toiling badly in midfield, largely due to only have one proper Championship player in there in the form of Wilson, and we were crying out for something else so even if Lyon was persona non grata, surely McGrattan could have been given a chance? Any time he's been involved he's looked decent including the win over Partick in particular, yet we never really saw much of him. If he's not going to be getting used, he shouldn't have been signed up again as 21 isn't really "young boy" territory any longer (not that it's old).

 

 

 

AWMSC

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Doubt we will ever see him but means the squad don't need to play worldie dubs instead of matches at training anymore. 

Good people will do good things, bad people will do bad things, but only with religion do good people do bad things!

 

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15 minutes ago, EanieMeany said:

Don't we have a youth team with a goalkeeper who can make up the numbers...? Genuine question as I'd have thought there'd be somebody there who can sit on the bench rather than having to bring in a wee guy from elsewhere.

Bysouth was released in the summer, for better work opportunities outside of 'full-time' football supposedly. 

This is one of the many reasons why our current contract/training model needs to be seriously reviewed and the pros/cons of a hybrid or even fully part time alternative considered. We are fooling nobody by pretending that 20 year olds on a pittance or glorified Herbalife salesmen on two year deals make a genuinely professional squad. 

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The site is supposed to be a place for the extended 'family' of Morton supporters - having an affinity with people that you don't know, because you share a love of your local football club. It's not supposed to be about point scoring and showing how 'clever' or 'funny' you are, or just being downright rude and offensive to people you don't know, because you can get away with it. Unfortunately, it seems the classic case of people who have little standing/presence in real life, use this forum as a way of making themselves feel as if they are something. It's sad, and I've said that before..

 

So, having been on Morton forums for about 15 years I guess, I've had enough... well done t*ssers, another Morton supporter driven away. You can all feel happy at how 'clever' you are

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We absolutely needed a goalkeeper given that Schwake looks set to be far more proactive in sweeping the defensive line than Hamilton was. But it isn't the missing piece for completing the squad either, so in that context this signing makes good sense.

Hopefully he can develop and provide a challenge, but we clearly have a no. 1 for now. 

The site is supposed to be a place for the extended 'family' of Morton supporters - having an affinity with people that you don't know, because you share a love of your local football club. It's not supposed to be about point scoring and showing how 'clever' or 'funny' you are, or just being downright rude and offensive to people you don't know, because you can get away with it. Unfortunately, it seems the classic case of people who have little standing/presence in real life, use this forum as a way of making themselves feel as if they are something. It's sad, and I've said that before..

 

So, having been on Morton forums for about 15 years I guess, I've had enough... well done t*ssers, another Morton supporter driven away. You can all feel happy at how 'clever' you are

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27 minutes ago, EanieMeany said:

Don't we have a youth team with a goalkeeper who can make up the numbers...? Genuine question as I'd have thought there'd be somebody there who can sit on the bench rather than having to bring in a wee guy from elsewhere.

No, basically. That's why I mentioned earlier that having a goalkeeper among the 'reserve' players would make sense. 

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1 hour ago, vikingTON said:

Bysouth was released in the summer, for better work opportunities outside of 'full-time' football supposedly. 

You mean the club said 'maybe full time football ain't for you' and let him go because according to Bysouth to the Tele, he went in after the Arbroath game hoping for a deal and for the plan to be sent out on loan only to be shown his gym results and told to do one.

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1 hour ago, Jamie_M said:

Aye, but he's 14.

The board low key binned the development squad a few weeks ago.

Oh, I wasn't aware of that. I'm not familiar with the structure below the senior squad so can't really comment on what scrapping it means, but it does seem to suggest that the "reserve" players we have are indeed intended to be regular members of the first team squad if there's not any kind of development team below it. It also makes you wonder what exactly the flurry of contract extensions earlier in the year were all about as presumably the decision wasn't taken overnight.

AWMSC

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2 hours ago, Toby said:

The 20s beat Dalry Thistle 3-2 in a friendly at Kilwinning’s ground yesterday. Who are these kids, and are they contracted to the club?

Questions.

According to the official site, the academy stops at 18s (of which there are 3 players) and the dev squad has been emptied (Sutton also?).

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Irvine Meadow also beat a Morton XI on Saturday as part of Kilbirnie's pre-season tournament.  Have we perhaps got rid of all of the original youth team and replaced them with a new set of 16 and 17 year olds?  Down here the National League clubs pick up £3k a player if they put them through 6th form as well as train them.  Bromley had enough for four teams last season.  

National League South and Isthmian League clubs are starting to do it as well - Get a school to agree to teach them and then it becomes the club's "academy".  

Is there something similar in Scotland?

"I learned long ago, never to wrestle with a pig. You get dirty, and besides, the pig likes it."

 

George Bernard Shaw

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Surely it's time to look at a couple of decent part time players?!  If our budget is that thin that it's impossible to get decent full time players we should be looking to get some PT bodies in.  It didn't do Arbroath any harm last season.

here today, gone to hell

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