Squad 25/26

[TRVMP]

13 minutes ago, Mr.Blue said:

If Millen has been told he's being sacked then you'd have to assume Imrie will be unhappy with this as he's always spoken very highly of him and credits a lot of the good work at Cappielow to him.

I think it's important to distinguish between sacked and released. According to the telegraph article he's out of contract. It could extend for one year but only if both sides agree. So all Morton have done is decline to use that option. That's not the same as sacking him. From Millen's perspective it's obviously a huge blow so I don't mean to dampen that at all, it is absolutely horrible to lose a job, I have been in that position twice in my career and I wouldn't wish it on anyone unconnected with Partick, but from the point of view of the employer this is not a sacking. 

[Jamie_M]

33 minutes ago, TRVMP said:

I think it's important to distinguish between sacked and released. According to the telegraph article he's out of contract. It could extend for one year but only if both sides agree. So all Morton have done is decline to use that option. That's not the same as sacking him. From Millen's perspective it's obviously a huge blow so I don't mean to dampen that at all, it is absolutely horrible to lose a job, I have been in that position twice in my career and I wouldn't wish it on anyone unconnected with Partick, but from the point of view of the employer this is not a sacking. 

He has a rolling 1 year contract so it's still a sacking.

[TRVMP]

12 minutes ago, Jamie_M said:

He has a rolling 1 year contract so it's still a sacking.

The Tele article says:

"The Telegraph understands that Millen's current contract was due to run out on June 10, with both Millen and the club having the option to automatically extend it for a further year if both parties wished to do so. It's believed the club will tell Millen they do not wish to exercise the option to extend his deal."

A true rolling contract doesn't work that way. It means every day it has 365 days before it expires.

Edited May 3 by TRVMP

[dunning1874]

Already under contract - Woods, Ballantyne, Delaney, Corr, Blues, Moffat, Garrity, Davies

Reasonable to assume all of them are here next year and no one's being punted early.

Of the rest, would put Mullen, Baird, Wilson, Crawford and Lyall in the obvious keep category. If Mullen and Wilson are still here it's only because other clubs are put off by their injury records, but we should 100% be doing all we can to keep them.

That leaves us:

Boyes - bucks the trend of players in this squad and in Imrie squads in general, because he's gotten worse as the season has gone on. The poor decision making and playing himself into trouble unnecessarily is a concern. I'd lean to keeping him with defensive continuity being useful while competent ball playing left footed centre backs are hard to find, and he does have a pretty high ceiling if he can cut out the mistakes, but the errors not seemingly improving over the season means I'd understand letting him go.

Gillespie - on the merit of his recent performances I think he's a player worth having, he's been an excellent servant for 3 years and I'd have used him more this season, but for whatever reason Imrie clearly doesn't have the same level of trust in him he once did and when he's been in the middle of the park he's rarely lasted over an hour. Makes sense to look for a cover option who is trusted to play 90 minutes when needed, and particularly with his injury history through his career you'd think he's the type of player who's more likely to start seeing a downturn at 34/35 than at 37/38, so letting him go is understandable.

Reynolds - he's a better player now than he was in July, but he's just not up to the standard and we've already got three better wingers signed up.

Adeloye - said previously that if you were making a judgement solely on his Morton performances rather than prior reputation you'd lean to letting him go, but 3 goals in 9 appearances (7 starts) is a good return and we're talking about someone who hadn't had a club for 9 months then had a month out injured after joining as well. Get him a proper pre-season and we know he can be the double figure centre forward we were lacking this year, I definitely think he's worth keeping and again it'd be good continuity to have a credible centre forward from the start of the season rather than needing to scramble for one after the season starts.

Shaw - There was a point not long after he'd gotten fit and came into the team that he had two goals and two assists after about 8 or 9 games, and you could make the same sort of calculation I've made with Adeloye that if you extrapolated that to a 36 game season  he could deliver a really good end product for a winger. He also delivered 9 league goals for Inverness two seasons so it was reasonable to hope that sort of healthy end product was going to come. As it's turned out though, it just isn't there.

Despite his injuries at the start of the season, Imrie making him undroppable since has actually seen him get more time on the park over the league season than Garrity or Davies have had, and he's delivered less. As well as not being nearly as effective in attack as Garrity, he's also by far the poorest of any of our attacking players defensively and just doesn't work hard enough. If a Muirhead level end product was there you could justify carrying him, but the end product is poor enough by itself to let him go as well. I've argued for continuity elsewhere but we've already got plenty of continuity among wingers with three under contract, and all three are better players than him. Let him go.

No idea what Murdoch or Keay's contract situations are, but I'd be happy to have both as part of the first team squad next season. Murdoch's performances should already have him above Woods in the pecking order.

[Jamie_M]

21 minutes ago, TRVMP said:

The Tele article says:

"The Telegraph understands that Millen's current contract was due to run out on June 10, with both Millen and the club having the option to automatically extend it for a further year if both parties wished to do so. It's believed the club will tell Millen they do not wish to exercise the option to extend his deal."

A true rolling contract doesn't work that way. It means every day it has 365 days before it expires.

Yeah, fair, rolling the wrong term. Auto-renewal made it seem more like an automatic entitlement but obviously has break clause with opt out deadline.

Surely the deadline wasn't 5 minutes after the match though.

[irnbru]

1 hour ago, Mr.Blue said:

If Millen has been told he's being sacked then you'd have to assume Imrie will be unhappy with this as he's always spoken very highly of him and credits a lot of the good work at Cappielow to him.

Obviously we don't know if Imrie is staying or not but there's also a chance he might want to try another assistant and this was the time to do it. He wasn't Imrie's own guy and, although they seem to work well together, it wouldn't be the first time a manager changed assistants. 

The other possibility is Imrie is gone and they didn't want to have an assistant landed on someone who didn't want them. 

There's also the disciplinary thing he had earlier in the season.... 

[TopCat]

1 hour ago, irnbru said:

Obviously we don't know if Imrie is staying or not but there's also a chance he might want to try another assistant and this was the time to do it. He wasn't Imrie's own guy and, although they seem to work well together, it wouldn't be the first time a manager changed assistants. 

The other possibility is Imrie is gone and they didn't want to have an assistant landed on someone who didn't want them. 

There's also the disciplinary thing he had earlier in the season.... 

That's the most obvious reason to me. Would you extend the contract of an employee who you had to suspend for 3 weeks for fighting? In most circumstances, the answer to that would be no. 

[RossMcC1874]

3 hours ago, dunning1874 said:

Already under contract - Woods, Ballantyne, Delaney, Corr, Blues, Moffat, Garrity, Davies

Reasonable to assume all of them are here next year and no one's being punted early.

Of the rest, would put Mullen, Baird, Wilson, Crawford and Lyall in the obvious keep category. If Mullen and Wilson are still here it's only because other clubs are put off by their injury records, but we should 100% be doing all we can to keep them.

That leaves us:

Boyes - bucks the trend of players in this squad and in Imrie squads in general, because he's gotten worse as the season has gone on. The poor decision making and playing himself into trouble unnecessarily is a concern. I'd lean to keeping him with defensive continuity being useful while competent ball playing left footed centre backs are hard to find, and he does have a pretty high ceiling if he can cut out the mistakes, but the errors not seemingly improving over the season means I'd understand letting him go.

Gillespie - on the merit of his recent performances I think he's a player worth having, he's been an excellent servant for 3 years and I'd have used him more this season, but for whatever reason Imrie clearly doesn't have the same level of trust in him he once did and when he's been in the middle of the park he's rarely lasted over an hour. Makes sense to look for a cover option who is trusted to play 90 minutes when needed, and particularly with his injury history through his career you'd think he's the type of player who's more likely to start seeing a downturn at 34/35 than at 37/38, so letting him go is understandable.

Reynolds - he's a better player now than he was in July, but he's just not up to the standard and we've already got three better wingers signed up.

Adeloye - said previously that if you were making a judgement solely on his Morton performances rather than prior reputation you'd lean to letting him go, but 3 goals in 9 appearances (7 starts) is a good return and we're talking about someone who hadn't had a club for 9 months then had a month out injured after joining as well. Get him a proper pre-season and we know he can be the double figure centre forward we were lacking this year, I definitely think he's worth keeping and again it'd be good continuity to have a credible centre forward from the start of the season rather than needing to scramble for one after the season starts.

Shaw - There was a point not long after he'd gotten fit and came into the team that he had two goals and two assists after about 8 or 9 games, and you could make the same sort of calculation I've made with Adeloye that if you extrapolated that to a 36 game season  he could deliver a really good end product for a winger. He also delivered 9 league goals for Inverness two seasons so it was reasonable to hope that sort of healthy end product was going to come. As it's turned out though, it just isn't there.

Despite his injuries at the start of the season, Imrie making him undroppable since has actually seen him get more time on the park over the league season than Garrity or Davies have had, and he's delivered less. As well as not being nearly as effective in attack as Garrity, he's also by far the poorest of any of our attacking players defensively and just doesn't work hard enough. If a Muirhead level end product was there you could justify carrying him, but the end product is poor enough by itself to let him go as well. I've argued for continuity elsewhere but we've already got plenty of continuity among wingers with three under contract, and all three are better players than him. Let him go.

No idea what Murdoch or Keay's contract situations are, but I'd be happy to have both as part of the first team squad next season. Murdoch's performances should already have him above Woods in the pecking order.

Agree with most of this. I have never been a massive fan of Gillespie but he is solid enough for this level and can provide cover in other positions but I wouldn't be fussed if he wasn't here saying that I expect he will be offered a deal.

Adeloye I would keep but his injury record and lack of effort at times is so frustrating, I wouldn't want him starting as for me he doesn't work hard enough but if he plays a full season it's not out of the question for him to get into double figures if he stays fit but it's a big if. 

I would be tempted to punt Woods and Davies but they both have a year left so can't see it happening. 

I will be really shocked if we still have Wilson or Mullen come the start of next season. 

[Brian Skelton]

5 hours ago, irnbru said:

Obviously we don't know if Imrie is staying or not but there's also a chance he might want to try another assistant and this was the time to do it. He wasn't Imrie's own guy and, although they seem to work well together, it wouldn't be the first time a manager changed assistants. 

The other possibility is Imrie is gone and they didn't want to have an assistant landed on someone who didn't want them. 

There's also the disciplinary thing he had earlier in the season.... 

Don't go by that Dougie always praised Andy up to the hilt. My prospective on what has happened is what ever happened at the Raith game when he was suspended for 3 weeks it was cheaper to let his contract run down than face a tribunal.

[irnbru]

11 minutes ago, Brian Skelton said:

Don't go by that Dougie always praised Andy up to the hilt. My prospective on what has happened is what ever happened at the Raith game when he was suspended for 3 weeks it was cheaper to let his contract run down than face a tribunal.

Aye, I'd probably bet on that too tbf. 

[TRVMP]

58 minutes ago, Brian Skelton said:

Don't go by that Dougie always praised Andy up to the hilt. My prospective on what has happened is what ever happened at the Raith game when he was suspended for 3 weeks it was cheaper to let his contract run down than face a tribunal.

Reading between the lines I'm almost certain that's what happened as well.

[Cet Homme Charmant]

Has it been confirmed that Andy's contract won't be extended? Meeting was today and there's nothing on the official website

[Ferguson]

Some positive news amongst the chaos, Sam Murdoch is called up to a Scotland under-19s camp. First Morton player to be called up at any age level for almost 10 years. Well done him, very well deserved.

[Jamie_M]

1 hour ago, Ferguson said:

Some positive news amongst the chaos, Sam Murdoch is called up to a Scotland under-19s camp. First Morton player to be called up at any age level for almost 10 years. Well done him, very well deserved.

Nice.

And his dad didn't even have to threaten that he would switch allegiances to Portugal to try to get the call up.

[Stevie Aitken's Love Child]

Aidan Connolly, who was rumoured to have agreed to join us a few weeks back, confirmed as being released by Raith Rovers.

Can't imagine we'll be confirming any new signings any time soon, sadly.

[IanClinging]

On 5/2/2025 at 11:30 PM, John369 said:

It apparently all went down after the game, with Andy Millen in his office when Dale came in and handed him a letter. That was it no big meeting, no drawn-out conversation. Just a quiet sacking behind closed doors.

 

Apparently, as Dale turned to leave, he said, “You won’t be missed.”

 

On 5/3/2025 at 1:17 PM, John369 said:

Millen gave a letter by Dale, correct. 
Millen being sacked, correct. 
 

thank you for the kind word SpoonTon!

Given your insider knowledge on this story, can you explain why the club has yet to issue a copy-and-paste statement thanking Andy for his time and efforts and wishing him well in the future?

Also, if Millen was treated so shoddily, why has there been no further leaks of this story when all other club business has been aired so publicly these last few weeks? 

[The Bewilderedbeast]

Don't know where else to put this, and I know there are other things to deal with but, has thee been any work done on the shed roof?

[Stevie Aitken's Love Child]

5 hours ago, The Bewilderedbeast said:

Don't know where else to put this, and I know there are other things to deal with but, has thee been any work done on the shed roof?

Passed Cappielow on the train on Friday, looks like no work has been done so far.

[John369]

It was great to see Stuart Kettlewell in attendance at the U18s Cup Final, followed by a visit to the women’s game yesterday. Brilliant to see he already cares about all aspects of the club. Maybe he’s already eyeing up the next Lennon Miller from our U18s, ready to hand out first-team chances when he steps into the manager’s role next season, with Dougie heading off to Partick.

[John369]

On 5/18/2025 at 2:37 PM, IanClinging said:

 

Given your insider knowledge on this story, can you explain why the club has yet to issue a copy-and-paste statement thanking Andy for his time and efforts and wishing him well in the future?

Also, if Millen was treated so shoddily, why has there been no further leaks of this story when all other club business has been aired so publicly these last few weeks? 

Millen isn’t actually out of contract until June, so the club will likely keep everything quiet until then to avoid making any premature announcements. As for the lack of follow-up on the story, with so much other club business being aired so publicly in recent weeks, it’s created the perfect cover — the ideal conditions for his departure to go largely unnoticed and for fans not to question it too much, especially with the additional fuck ups currently going on.