Morton vs Stenny Scottish Cup

[SpoonTon]

2 hours ago, Greacen2000 said:

Sorry brain fart from me there.  Totally point taken re the significance of the competition & the nature of the defeat, but I would still say that purely on the basis of the performance, result & standard of opponent they are comparable.

It definitely makes a difference that it's the Scottish Cup. The East Fife result in the League Cup last season was a bad one as well, but you can kind of mitigate that by saying that it was the first game in mid July with plenty of new signings. Losing 4-0 in the Scottish Cup to a team from a lower division really stands out in our history. 

For a different example, if our League Cup win over Celtic came in the Scottish Cup, it would have been a far higher profile shock result and taker about as perhaps the worst in their history. Objectively, to lose to that Morton side really should be considered their worst ever result, but it doesn't get talked about as much as others (Clyde, ICT). 

It really was a freak result, and it's odd for a freak result to be so deserved. It's not like it was 4 hits into the top corner from 30 yards. We deserved to concede each goal as much as they deserved to score it. For me, it stands alongside the defeat to Spartans and the 10-2 (losing to Hamilton wasn't a surprise that day, but it's the scoreline which makes it what it is). 

[dunning1874]

3 hours ago, Greacen2000 said:

I would probably give it a few more games before calling it a regression.  Maybe it’s sign of a regression, or maybe it’s a 1-off.  There have been plenty of games this season where we could have conceded more from these situations, but were saved by good goalkeeping or bad finishing so I’m not ready to call it a massive regression just yet.

 

You won’t hear me calling this anything other than a monumentally awful result,  but i still think you are overreacting a bit.  It’s possible that some folk might have a bit of a cognitive bias here because it’s Stenhousemuir.  If we had went down by the same scoreline to Inverness, Queen of the south (and maybe even Hamilton!) then I doubt the reaction would have been as severe.

Arguably it isn’t even our worst result of this season - I would say that getting knocked out the challenge cup by a team who had just gone 8 games without a win in League 2 is objectively worst than getting knocked out by a team 4 places below us.  And before you say it’s about the scoreline rather than just the result - Stirling created more chances against us and we could easily have conceded more if it weren’t for some big saves (something that didn’t happen on Saturday unfortunately).

I sincerely hope it is a one off, but if Murray indulges in the same collective delusion as much of this forum about it being nothing to do with him then it won't be. This team have played another 28 games this season, many of them against a higher standard of opposition, without ever being as bad defensively at set-pieces as they were on Saturday. This is an objective fact proven by the number of goals conceded from them.

I'm sure he won't because his career as a whole suggests he's a good manager and I have confidence that he'll get it sorted out for this weekend, but if Murray shrugs his shoulders like everyone apparently thinks he should and agrees that there's fuck all he can do about it other than making new signings, because it's all the players and nothing to do with him, we'll be on the end of several more pumpings. We're not going to sign a whole new defence. Several of those players are still going to be playing regularly for the rest of the season and therefore he needs to do a much better job of organising them defensively than he did on Saturday, as even Billy Davies and Gary Miller managed despite being dreadful overall.

This four places line also doesn't stand up. We're in different divisions. When we played Aberdeen earlier in the season we were five places from them, same as we are now from Partick. That doesn't make playing Aberdeen the same level of challenge as playing Partick.

Had we beaten Aberdeen 4-0 that would have been one of the worst results in Aberdeen's history, just as losing to Inverness, Queen of the South or Hamilton (Stenhousemuir are a better team than two and possibly all three of them) would also have been for us. In the same way, losing 4-0 to Livingston would be a dreadful result for Aberdeen, as losing 4-0 to us would be for Partick, but not shooting extremely high up an all-time list for them because they're in the same division.

Stenhousemuir are obviously a far better team than Stirling, but losing 4-0 is also considerably worse than drawing 2-2.

[TopCat]

1 hour ago, dunning1874 said:

I sincerely hope it is a one off, but if Murray indulges in the same collective delusion as much of this forum about it being nothing to do with him then it won't be. This team have played another 28 games this season, many of them against a higher standard of opposition, without ever being as bad defensively at set-pieces as they were on Saturday. This is an objective fact proven by the number of goals conceded from them.

I'm sure he won't because his career as a whole suggests he's a good manager and I have confidence that he'll get it sorted out for this weekend, but if Murray shrugs his shoulders like everyone apparently thinks he should and agrees that there's fuck all he can do about it other than making new signings, because it's all the players and nothing to do with him, we'll be on the end of several more pumpings. We're not going to sign a whole new defence. Several of those players are still going to be playing regularly for the rest of the season and therefore he needs to do a much better job of organising them defensively than he did on Saturday, as even Billy Davies and Gary Miller managed despite being dreadful overall.

This four places line also doesn't stand up. We're in different divisions. When we played Aberdeen earlier in the season we were five places from them, same as we are now from Partick. That doesn't make playing Aberdeen the same level of challenge as playing Partick.

Had we beaten Aberdeen 4-0 that would have been one of the worst results in Aberdeen's history, just as losing to Inverness, Queen of the South or Hamilton (Stenhousemuir are a better team than two and possibly all three of them) would also have been for us. In the same way, losing 4-0 to Livingston would be a dreadful result for Aberdeen, as losing 4-0 to us would be for Partick, but not shooting extremely high up an all-time list for them because they're in the same division.

Stenhousemuir are obviously a far better team than Stirling, but losing 4-0 is also considerably worse than drawing 2-2.

Lots of hyperbole and speculation here. The suggestion that criticising the squad = free pass for the manager is a silly one. Murray is now the manager and the buck stops with him. No one would seriously suggest otherwise.

I think the Stenny performance was a dramatic drop off which needs to be addressed by the new manager, but it's a particularly bad day at the office amongst a general trend of decline since October and woe-is-me hard luck stories before that.

[Greacen2000]

1 hour ago, dunning1874 said:

I sincerely hope it is a one off, but if Murray indulges in the same collective delusion as much of this forum about it being nothing to do with him then it won't be. This team have played another 28 games this season, many of them against a higher standard of opposition, without ever being as bad defensively at set-pieces as they were on Saturday. This is an objective fact proven by the number of goals conceded from them.

I'm sure he won't because his career as a whole suggests he's a good manager and I have confidence that he'll get it sorted out for this weekend, but if Murray shrugs his shoulders like everyone apparently thinks he should and agrees that there's fuck all he can do about it other than making new signings, because it's all the players and nothing to do with him, we'll be on the end of several more pumpings. We're not going to sign a whole new defence. Several of those players are still going to be playing regularly for the rest of the season and therefore he needs to do a much better job of organising them defensively than he did on Saturday, as even Billy Davies and Gary Miller managed despite being dreadful overall.

This four places line also doesn't stand up. We're in different divisions. When we played Aberdeen earlier in the season we were five places from them, same as we are now from Partick. That doesn't make playing Aberdeen the same level of challenge as playing Partick.

Had we beaten Aberdeen 4-0 that would have been one of the worst results in Aberdeen's history, just as losing to Inverness, Queen of the South or Hamilton (Stenhousemuir are a better team than two and possibly all three of them) would also have been for us. In the same way, losing 4-0 to Livingston would be a dreadful result for Aberdeen, as losing 4-0 to us would be for Partick, but not shooting extremely high up an all-time list for them because they're in the same division.

Stenhousemuir are obviously a far better team than Stirling, but losing 4-0 is also considerably worse than drawing 2-2.

I certainly wouldn’t claim that Saturdays result had “nothing to do with him” but maybe others have.  I was more reacting to calls about the result raising questions about Murray.  If he had tinkered with the team excessively or attempted some Wilfred Nancy esque back 3 with no centre backs etc then maybe, but that’s not what happened and I think it’s unfair to raise questions over the manager after just 1 game.

on the “4 league places” thing - I could just as easily said something like “losing to a team who are flying high in the league below us is comparable to/no worse than being knocked out by a team who are struggling 2 divisions below us”.  The point still stands, and I do believe that in some cases (maybe not you) the cognitive bias I mention has played a part in people’s reactions to the result.

[vikingTON]

20 hours ago, Greacen2000 said:

I didn’t see anything in the game to suggest that the poor defending was down to bad organisation or coaching - the players were where I would expect them to be but they didn’t do their job.

I also haven’t seen anyone trying to completely absolve Murray from responsibility.  We lost the game - the players and coaching staff are quite clearly responsible for that.

So on the one hand the coaching staff are "quite clearly responsible" - except for in literally the same post, just above, in which shipping 3 set piece goals from just about 3 actual set pieces to defend is actually about the players 'not doing their job' with 'no sign of bad organisation or coaching*'. Make your mind up please.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

*Hint: A fundamental part of a football manager's job is to get the players to do their jobs properly. Which includes in-game and half time adjustment to hold those who are not dojng their job to account. It's not some optional part of their job description. 

[Greacen2000]

44 minutes ago, vikingTON said:

So on the one hand the coaching staff are "quite clearly responsible" - except for in literally the same post, just above, in which shipping 3 set piece goals from just about 3 actual set pieces to defend is actually about the players 'not doing their job' with 'no sign of bad organisation or coaching*'. Make your mind up please.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

*Hint: A fundamental part of a football manager's job is to get the players to do their jobs properly. Which includes in-game and half time adjustment to hold those who are not dojng their job to account. It's not some optional part of their job description. 

I don’t see why both things I said can’t be true.  It didn’t look like we were disorganised or the players didn’t know where to be - they just didn’t do their jobs, and the manager has to take some of the responsibility for that.  

[Ton in Shawlands]

Bottom line to me is, it's what you'ld like to think was an unneccessary wake up call to the degree of our squads issues. Welcome to Cappielow, no free passes, that was completely unacceptable, you must do a hell of a lot better. He might be just in the door, but it must be sorted to the best of his ability right now with a visibe reaction in the next game & progressive improvements. As an experienced guy he must understand this in any case.

[HamCam]

The only problem might be - you cannae polish a turd.

[vikingTON]

30 minutes ago, HamCam said:

The only problem might be - you cannae polish a turd.

Oh come off it FFS. It's hardly a 2013/14-esque setup, in either budget o availability terms right now. 

[Ferguson]

8 hours ago, vikingTON said:

Oh come off it FFS. It's hardly a 2013/14-esque setup, in either budget o availability terms right now. 

Not to disagree, but I had a look out of interest. Here’s how we currently compare with the same point of the 2013/14 season.

League wins

13/14: 3

25/26: 4

Scottish Cup

13/14: 4-0 L to Inverness R4

25/26: 4-0 L to Stenhousemuir R4

Challenge Cup

13/14: 1-0 L to Annan R1

25/26: Penalties L to Stirling Albion R1

League Cup

13/14: 1-0 L to St Johnstone QF

25/26: 3-0 L to Aberdeen L16

 

Only our plethora of league draws currently saving us from a complete disaster season.

[Greacen2000]

1 hour ago, Ferguson said:

Not to disagree, but I had a look out of interest. Here’s how we currently compare with the same point of the 2013/14 season.

League wins

13/14: 3

25/26: 4

Scottish Cup

13/14: 4-0 L to Inverness R4

25/26: 4-0 L to Stenhousemuir R4

Challenge Cup

13/14: 1-0 L to Annan R1

25/26: Penalties L to Stirling Albion R1

League Cup

13/14: 1-0 L to St Johnstone QF

25/26: 3-0 L to Aberdeen L16

 

Only our plethora of league draws currently saving us from a complete disaster season.

We are also benefitting from the clubs directly above & below us performing a lot worse than expected this season.

We are 9 points better off than we were at this point in 13/14 but our current points total would still have us very firmly in 9th place with Cowdenbeath breathing down our neck.  

This has been a monumentally awful season by any measure.  It’s a borderline miracle we are currently (albeit barely) clear of the bottom 2 spots and still with a (mathematically at least)slim chance of achieving 4th.

At this stage I would bite your hand off to just stay up then build for next season  but we have a lot of work to do as the 3 below us are all more than capable of having an upturn in form and overtaking us.

[dunning1874]

1 hour ago, Ferguson said:

Not to disagree, but I had a look out of interest. Here’s how we currently compare with the same point of the 2013/14 season.

League wins

13/14: 3

25/26: 4

Scottish Cup

13/14: 4-0 L to Inverness R4

25/26: 4-0 L to Stenhousemuir R4

Challenge Cup

13/14: 1-0 L to Annan R1

25/26: Penalties L to Stirling Albion R1

League Cup

13/14: 1-0 L to St Johnstone QF

25/26: 3-0 L to Aberdeen L16

 

Only our plethora of league draws currently saving us from a complete disaster season.

We had also conceded 12 more league goals and were 9 points worse off after 21 games of that season, because that team was much, much worse defensively than this one. This team being capable of grinding out draws where that one wasn't isn't a coincidence, it's because this defence regularly only concedes once.

Across 21 league games they've conceded two or more in 5 games, all of them against the top four in the division. In 13/14 we'd conceded two or more in 14 of the first 21 games, with all but one side (Hamilton, ironically) managing it. We'd lost 5-1 to both the 9th placed and 7th placed teams.

That side was utter dogshit and got hammered on a regular basis because of it. This side is flawed but actually don't concede many goals. The three sides below us have all conceded more. 10 of the 28 league goals conceded have been against St Johnstone, the best team in the league by a mile. Take out the three games with them and against the other sides in the league it's 18 conceded in 18 games, which is actually good: the performances against St Johnstone are an outlier whereas nothing in 13/14 was an outlier.

Which brings us to this:

11 hours ago, HamCam said:

The only problem might be - you cannae polish a turd.

This is simply complete bollocks, because Murray hasn't inherited a 13/14 or Gus MacPherson level mess. I've been critical of the defence throughout the season and thought it was an obvious place to upgrade, but there has been no indication throughout the season that the team was anywhere close to being bad enough defensively to deliver the performance and result they did on Saturday. That wasn't a manager being unable to polish a turd in failing to get an immediate improvement from a poor defence, that was a defence getting considerably worse than they've been before and turning in by a mile their worst performance of the season, with basic competence at set-pieces completely vanishing. When that happens immediately after a change of manager then the manager getting something horribly wrong is the blatantly obvious explanation for it.

None of this means Murray is a dud who's incapable of fixing it and won't ultimately be a success despite the terrible start, but it's a self-evident fact that he made things even worse in his first game in charge and he needs to fix it quickly if we're not going to be in the bottom two by the end of the month.

[RossMcC1874]

This squad lack physicality, height and there are no real leaders. 

We got lucky in multiple games at the start of the season when Saint Imrie was in charge because Storer was playing like prime Buffon, now that his form has dipped and the players dont have the saint to play for its clear the majority of them have chucked it. Even before in previous seasons when we hit bad form we always had players to get us out of a hole, this season I dont see it. 

[HamCam]

Talk about taking yourselves too seriously. My comment was in jest at the hyperbolic nonsense after Murray has been in charge for one game.

Anyone at the game could see the core issue was players failing to do their basic defensive duties. Murray was going apoplectic on the sidelines. Once we were chasing the game Murray had limited options given the injuries on the park and what was on the bench. This is down to the bloated squad assembled by Imrie. 

[Greacen2000]

2 hours ago, dunning1874 said:

I've been critical of the defence throughout the season and thought it was an obvious place to upgrade, but there has been no indication throughout the season that the team was anywhere close to being bad enough defensively to deliver the performance and result they did on Saturday. That wasn't a manager being unable to polish a turd in failing to get an immediate improvement from a poor defence, that was a defence getting considerably worse than they've been before and turning in by a mile their worst performance of the season, with basic competence at set-pieces completely vanishing. When that happens immediately after a change of manager then the manager getting something horribly wrong is the blatantly obvious explanation for it.

None of this means Murray is a dud who's incapable of fixing it and won't ultimately be a success despite the terrible start, but it's a self-evident fact that he made things even worse in his first game in charge and he needs to fix it quickly if we're not going to be in the bottom two by the end of the month.

I think you are underestimating the extent to which the defensive cracks have been papered over by shite finishing & good goalkeeping this season.

If you look at the stats below it would suggest that we didn’t become “immediately worse” as a result of Murray - the chances stenny created against us was broadly in line with how we have performed all season.

Of course Murray is responsible for getting the players to perform, but in this case I think we need to put more focus on individual performances than on us somehow being “made worse” by the new manager.

 

 

[SpoonTon]

1 hour ago, Greacen2000 said:

I think you are underestimating the extent to which the defensive cracks have been papered over by shite finishing & good goalkeeping this season.

If you look at the stats below it would suggest that we didn’t become “immediately worse” as a result of Murray - the chances stenny created against us was broadly in line with how we have performed all season.

Of course Murray is responsible for getting the players to perform, but in this case I think we need to put more focus on individual performances than on us somehow being “made worse” by the new manager.

 

 

We also conceded from 100% of the corners we defended on Saturday, which I'm guessing is significantly worse than the season average. 

We had very little defending to do because we dominated most aspects of the match - just not the ones that mattered. 

[Greacen2000]

25 minutes ago, SpoonTon said:

We also conceded from 100% of the corners we defended on Saturday, which I'm guessing is significantly worse than the season average. 

We had very little defending to do because we dominated most aspects of the match - just not the ones that mattered. 

Totally take that on board - I would have included corner stats if there was an easy way of me doing so without having to trawl back through match reports etc to see all the sources of goals conceded

Having said that, I still think that we don’t just become shite at defending corners - our players just lost individual battles while theirs took their chances.  To take a recent example, it was a fucking miracle that we don’t concede at least 1 goal from the countless corners Partick had when we played them .  At no point however did I feel like we were doing a particularly great job of defending them - every time they had a corner it caused us problems but just didn’t lead to a goal.

[SpoonTon]

Just now, Greacen2000 said:

Totally take that on board - I would have included corner stats if there was an easy way of me doing so without having to trawl back through match reports etc to see all the sources of goals conceded

Having said that, I still think that we don’t just become shite at defending corners - our players just lost individual battles while theirs took their chances.  To take a recent example, it was a fucking miracle that we don’t concede at least 1 goal from the countless corners Partick had when we played them .  At no point however did I feel like we were doing a particularly great job of defending them - every time they had a corner it caused us problems but just didn’t lead to a goal.

We easily could've conceded at least 5 in the second half against Patrick (penalty miss, sitter blazed over the bar, and the attack with the last ditch blocks spring to mind). So it's definitely concerning that we've conceded 7 from a game and a half and, frankly, didn't look particularly competent in defending any attack in that time. The Peterhead game is another that stands out as a match where we didn't look capable of successfully defending much at all. I think the issue has certainly been there all along, but we did manage to look solid with the first choice back four for a lengthy enough period earlier in the season. Not outstanding, slightly lucky at times, but so much better than we've seen at times in recent weeks. 

[Jamie_M]

11 hours ago, Ferguson said:

Only our plethora of league draws currently saving us from a complete disaster season.

That last line bust the argument though - counting wins and not points.

'Only this team managing to accumulate points is saving us from being relegated like a team that couldn't accumulate points.'

9 hours ago, Greacen2000 said:

This has been a monumentally awful season by any measur⁸e. 

When Imrie left, we had 18 points from 16 games - still 2 points better off than the same point last season.

Thanks to the 'who's actually in charge?' period under the caretakers (and without Imrie's invincibility in winter) though we are now 5 points behind the same point last season.

Edited January 22 by Jamie_M

[vikingTON]

On 1/21/2026 at 11:10 PM, vikingTON said:

Oh come off it FFS. It's hardly a 2013/14-esque setup, in either budget o availability terms right now. 

 

On 1/22/2026 at 8:07 AM, Ferguson said:

Not to disagree, but I had a look out of interest. Here’s how we currently compare with the same point of the 2013/14 season.

League wins

13/14: 3

25/26: 4

Scottish Cup

13/14: 4-0 L to Inverness R4

25/26: 4-0 L to Stenhousemuir R4

Challenge Cup

13/14: 1-0 L to Annan R1

25/26: Penalties L to Stirling Albion R1

League Cup

13/14: 1-0 L to St Johnstone QF

25/26: 3-0 L to Aberdeen L16

 

Only our plethora of league draws currently saving us from a complete disaster season.

 

On 1/22/2026 at 9:28 AM, Greacen2000 said:

We are also benefitting from the clubs directly above & below us performing a lot worse than expected this season.

We are 9 points better off than we were at this point in 13/14 but our current points total would still have us very firmly in 9th place with Cowdenbeath breathing down our neck.  

This has been a monumentally awful season by any measure.  It’s a borderline miracle we are currently (albeit barely) clear of the bottom 2 spots and still with a (mathematically at least)slim chance of achieving 4th.

At this stage I would bite your hand off to just stay up then build for next season  but we have a lot of work to do as the 3 below us are all more than capable of having an upturn in form and overtaking us.

Just going to bump this - as is my wont - ludicrous revisionism from a fortnight ago, to cover for the straightforward verdict of a team and management simply being incompetent to handle a single cup game. 

We'll be finishing 7th in the second tier just like in roughly 24 other occasions this century.