Match Preview/Thread - Dundee vs Morton (15th April)

[irnbru]

5 hours ago, DreamOakTree said:

I haven’t seen much of Dougie taking any blame but I’ll take your word for it. I agree with your second point though. It’s just the old adage that if you don’t admit there’s a problem then how can you start to fix it? If referees, opponents tactics or your own players’ failings are the cause of all your ills then who’s going to sort it out if not the manager with a change in attitude? Thankfully for us that seems to be the reason other clubs are steering clear of Dougie just now.

He's clearly talked about wrong selections, etc and been pretty good with analysis of how to fix issues (recent example being show your man down the line rather than commit to a tackle). He's a young manager who's overly passionate without thinking about what he says but he's tactically clued up and isn't just looking for excuses. 

Just now, irnbru said:

He's clearly talked about wrong selections, etc and been pretty good with analysis of how to fix issues (recent example being show your man down the line rather than commit to a tackle). He's a young manager who's overly passionate without thinking about what he says but he's tactically clued up and isn't just looking for excuses. 

Also, we've lost 3 in 13 or so and should should have won in at least one of them and in a few of the draws if finishing was better. Performances have been decent. Your take is really ott. 

[DreamOakTree]

8 hours ago, irnbru said:

Also, we've lost 3 in 13 or so and should should have won in at least one of them and in a few of the draws if finishing was better. Performances have been decent. Your take is really ott. 

Is it OTT or fact to say the 6 games that Aliesta started cost us any chance of the title then the play-offs?

[irnbru]

20 minutes ago, DreamOakTree said:

Is it OTT or fact to say the 6 games that Aliesta started cost us any chance of the title then the play-offs?

Yes. 

Not a fan of him at all but the overall performance of the team was decent enough in them games. Easy to say it might have been better without him but that's just speculation. 

[DreamOakTree]

 

Instead of fact based analysis, let’s try fact based evidence:

 

1/ Imrie prefers to improve players who are/were unpopular with the fans:

Evidence - Muirhead, Blues, Baird, and to a lesser extent Quitongo and O’Connor. (I’ve no complaint about this at all)

 

2/ Imrie prefers to bring in his own players and again improve them:

Evidence - Gillespie, R.Crawford, Grimshaw, Quitongo, O’Connor, Waters, Oakley (again I’m very happy with that outcome, although several others didn’t work out so well)

 

3/ Imrie has something against popular homegrown players:

Evidence - Strapp, McGregor, Lyon, McGrattan, King, Garrity.

 

4/ Despite improving those mentioned players and the team’s competitiveness, Imrie prioritised the resurrection of some of those players’ careers over the pursuit of promotion:

Evidence - He told the players when we reached 40 points that was the target for the season so they were just to enjoy their football for the rest of the campaign. Two days later he signed Ali Crawford and changed the team that he’d improved so well to accommodate his pal and one or two others. We won none of the next six matches that Crawford started. He was taken off in the seventh game and we turned the game around with our previously competitive eleven.

 

The thing that mystifies me though is why he gave up on promotion yet then got himself into heated situations over results of important matches that were derailing said promotion challenge. The only logical reason I can think of is that he felt he was taking the pressure off the players by telling them to just enjoy their football.

Instead I felt he only succeeded in taking their competitive edge away from them, especially in critical close matches. Ironically it was Imrie who’d instilled that edge into them in the first place.

 

[HamCam]

DOT you deserve numerous red dots for that nonsense. As frustrated as we all are with the season petering out not a chance I believe the players have gone on holiday because Imrie gave up on promotion. Our manager is still learning but the one constant is he is a winner who sets high standards for his players. 

[DreamOakTree]

1 hour ago, HamCam said:

DOT you deserve numerous red dots for that nonsense. As frustrated as we all are with the season petering out not a chance I believe the players have gone on holiday because Imrie gave up on promotion. Our manager is still learning but the one constant is he is a winner who sets high standards for his players. 

I probably do deserve some stick, but on points 1 & 2 he’s excelled!

[TRVMP]

There's no evidence that he has "something against" the popular homegrown players qua their status as popular homegrown players. We still don't know the full story about Strapp. He's not the only manager to have dropped Lyon. On McGrattan, I wish he had played him more (and he did start him recently) but it's not clear it's some kind of vendetta. On the last two, they are very young and raw.

[DreamOakTree]

On 4/19/2023 at 11:16 PM, TRVMP said:

There's no evidence that he has "something against" the popular homegrown players qua their status as popular homegrown players. We still don't know the full story about Strapp. He's not the only manager to have dropped Lyon. On McGrattan, I wish he had played him more (and he did start him recently) but it's not clear it's some kind of vendetta. On the last two, they are very young and raw.

You’re incredibly positive about our prospects with Dougie and I agree with you on that point! I will definitely give him The benefit of the doubt next season, as I don’t believe our abject surrender was just down to Dougie, but was More a case of the board saying  we’re not ready for promotion.

[TRVMP]

2 hours ago, DreamOakTree said:

You’re incredibly positive about our prospects with Dougie and I agree with you on that point! I will definitely give him The benefit of the doubt next season, as I don’t believe our abject surrender was just down to Dougie, but was More a case of the board saying  we’re not ready for promotion.

Yeah, the Board told Dougie to sandbag the season because they didn't want the seven figure windfall and the sponsors didn't want the massively increased exposure. 

[dunning1874]

I'd have thought the whole "Morton don't want promotion!" conspiracy theory beloved of OF supporting taxi drivers would have disappeared with Golden Casket. Apparently not.

[TopCat]

We had a paper-thin squad which punched well above its weight for 6 months and then ran out of steam. The January signings either weren't good enough or fit enough to keep us ticking over. Its really not much more complicated than that.

Imrie and the board have managed to keep us competitive in the mid-table mix (off the back of narrowly avoided financial collapse last year). There's a really good chance we'll do better next season.

[SpoonTon]

4 hours ago, TopCat said:

We had a paper-thin squad which punched well above its weight for 6 months and then ran out of steam. The January signings either weren't good enough or fit enough to keep us ticking over. Its really not much more complicated than that.

Imrie and the board have managed to keep us competitive in the mid-table mix (off the back of narrowly avoided financial collapse last year). There's a really good chance we'll do better next season.

I agree with that to a large extent, but would add that with better finishing, being slightly more solid at the back and with a little bit better game management we'd be at least 5 points better off from recent games and still in contention for the title. I think it's less running out of steam than it is not making sure the we got what our general performances have deserved recently. 

The margins that have stopped this season from being absolutely outstanding have been paper thin. It is probably just that case of not managing to add the right quality in January. But we've been very close and there can't be many complaints at all. 

[vikingTON]

10 hours ago, TopCat said:

We had a paper-thin squad which punched well above its weight for 6 months and then ran out of steam. The January signings either weren't good enough or fit enough to keep us ticking over. Its really not much more complicated than that.

While I agree with this, the remaining neglected factor is that the quality of about half of the division improved significantly in January too. The likes of Arbroath, Inverness, Partick (after bagging McCall) and to a lesser extent Hamilton all significantly improved their own level of performance in the second half of the campaign. So the idea that we'd have just kept bagging points as before only with McGrattan replacing Kabia and our two other forwards in the entire squad is not credible even if we did somehow avoid any injuries or loss of form. 

The reality is that while our team has IMO clearly improved in terms of quality of play and squad depth since November/December, there have been a couple of other sides who have either improved by a larger degree or just got their act together with a higher upper boundary of budget and quality to work with. 

'We did improve but the fundamentals of league football meant that we ended up midtable anyway' might not make an effective hot take for some shan podcast, but it's much closer to reality that the fixation on player selection since the transfer window opened in January. 

5 hours ago, SpoonTon said:

I agree with that to a large extent, but would add that with better finishing, being slightly more solid at the back and with a little bit better game management we'd be at least 5 points better off from recent games and still in contention for the title. I think it's less running out of steam than it is not making sure the we got what our general performances have deserved recently. 

The margins that have stopped this season from being absolutely outstanding have been paper thin. It is probably just that case of not managing to add the right quality in January. But we've been very close and there can't be many complaints at all. 

The five minutes between Muirhead's wonder strike against Inverness not going in off the bar and us contriving to concede a ridiculously soft winner being the case in point for that.