Leaderboard

At least we had two sixteen-year-olds on the bench. Fantastic for the football club and everybody in the building.

Livingston went from League One, with an average home attendance of around 700, to the Premiership in 2 years. They obviously have facilities which help, but where would they be right now if they didn't achieve those unexpected promotions? I get what Davies is saying, but we've had 2 year, 3 year, 5 year plans and we're still here. Actually getting promotion is arguably the very thing which would allow us to move forward in the longer term (as long as we're sensible). Scotland have qualified for 3 world cups since we last won promotion to the top flight - it would be massive for us. And if it's a longer term plan we're after, then we'd actually need much more investment off the pitch.

We already knew Corr wasn't good enough for the Championship and should be getting moved on in January from the evidence of being consistently pish throughout his time with the club. We already knew that Hart will be also be leaving in January from his literal zero minutes in the league 17 games in, and somehow being poor enough in training to remain below Corr in the pecking order. Therefore there was no value in giving them game time as there was nothing to learn, we didn't need to write off a cup to get further confirmation about them being mince. Being papped out of our only realistic chance of a trophy by the poorest team in the SPFL so far this season can't be anything but.

That record article reads like a planted agent puff piece, to be honest. It's ambiguous in the wording about him leaving Coleraine, leaving open the interpretation that he chose to leave himself when he was actually sacked, and talks up a track record of working with tight budgets when Coleraine had pushed the boat out and gone full-time. Players like Charles Dunne and Declan McManus won't have come cheap and suggest he was working with a comfortably bigger budget there than he'd have here, despite being in a much weaker league overall. Lots of people thought it was a harsh sacking so I'm not saying he's necessarily a bad manager, but there are some eyebrow raising claims in there.

I’d like to take this opportunity to point out some people wanted him to be first choice keeper this season. Just worth a moment of reflection… Anyway I hope he gets support from his teammates and goalie coach this week.

I'm caught between my own ambivalence towards this competition (season, squad) and disdain for Billy Davies and the current regime. If we're not in any sort of financial position to be promoted without severe consequences, as claimed by Davies, why are we treating the Challenge Cup as a bounce game? Surely this competition is the pinnacle of what our Caretaker views as achievable? If Hart and Murdoch aren't capable of featuring at Championship level at all before mid-December, why are they being given a start now?

No. Do not even speak that into existence, because the alternatives are repulsive.

Sounding scarily similar to Davies’ post match here. He chose to prioritise some bizarre fact finding mission, learn a bit more about our fringe players, making young players feel good by getting some minutes… and then “hope” (Davies’ choice of word) that we can win the game. The priority IS to win the game. All that other nonsense is secondary, so pick a team to expect victory. As you pointed out, there are no other scheduled midweek games, so why rotate so much? It’s complacent. This was called out before the game, including before and after the team lineup was announced. No hindsight required.

I would like to take this opportunity to apologise to Michael O’Halloran, and remove him from my Imrie rogues gallery XI, to be rightfully replaced by Austin Samuels

He had baird and boyes in front of him those 2 did well to protect him by being better players than current cb

That's an absolutely disgraceful and disastrous result against the worst team in the SPFL. Even if he wanted the job rather than being deluded enough to think he's above it, Davies' performance as caretaker should rule him out of the job anyway.

Oisin McEntee scores a header to put Hearts 2 up at Parkhead

why not test him out with the better, more experienced defence who he will actually be playing with if Storer leaves? Putting a back up player in to see how they fare in our starting XI - fair enough. Throwing in an 18yo rookie keeper with a pair of centre backs in front of him who have been nowhere near our first team for most of the season - maybe not so much. The 2 goals were undoubtedly howlers from Murdoch, but that in itself does not prove that he isn't good enough to be a Morton player. Many good keepers have had similar howlers. Murdoch gave a good account of himself in the spell he played last season, which I would say carries more weight than what happened on tuesday. If Storer leaves, we would 100% need to bring in another keeper anyway - regardless of how ready or otherwise Murdoch is. So what exactly did we learn from tuesday?

Murdoch came in at the end of last season and equipped himself very well (in a difficult and embarrassing situation for the club), but I'm struggling for the words to put to his two performances this season without feeling like I'm being really mean to an 18 year old trying his best. If Storer was in goals last night then we wouldn't have lost. This shouldn't deflect from another poor performance in the final third, or from the performances of other players (like Corr, who is relatively young as well), but we should know which players are and aren't ready to be thrown in.

I didn't say we were. Your justification for playing Corr and Hart was that finding out they weren't good enough to even cope with Stirling is good to know before January; we already knew they should both be leaving in January on account of obviously not being good enough for the Championship. They could have strolled through the game in a comfortable win last night and it wouldn't change that reality, so we've learned nothing by picking them. If playing one midweek game would constitute running Longridge and Moore into the ground then we're going to have big problems later in the season.

My worry is that we’ve not even thrown out a group of schoolboys there. We only had 3 teenagers start last night, one of which starts most weeks anyway, and finished the game with Murdoch being our only teenager on the pitch. It’s a disgrace that the 15 players we put out couldn’t find a way past Stirling Albion. I’m not bothered that we’re out, if we’d played a squad of the young boys that had given a good account and learned a lesson then fine but that’s a squad that we’re a few away injuries from starting in the Championship. Be more than glad to see Corr and Shaw banished to a Dumbarton or an East Kilbride for the remainder of the season.

I think when there's money on the table and the conditions are so poor, it's best to stick with a stronger lineup, particularly at the back. I don't see any particular need to 'blood' some regen who'll be back at Swindon soon. For our own goalkeeper there's a stronger case to make for rotation but given Storer's form I see no reason to rotate him out either.

He played about 10 minutes. Anyway, good to see his time at Morton left a lasting impression as he keeps the Morton conmection going by naming Jimmy Gourlay as his assistant.

Just watched the highlights, Jesus wept they 2 goals we conceded are embarrassing, Sunday league level

Hopefully that performance was enough to scare him off.

Yeah, I didn’t like his interview. Seemed to imply that it wasn’t his responsibility to win the match, as though he’s still the 2nd in command. The use of the word “hope” in that context is bizarre and unacceptable. FWIW I don’t think the volume of rotation was wrong, but if you’re throwing in a teenage centre half and a teenage keeper, both with no appearances all season, you absolutely have to give them an experienced head to help them through it otherwise the “experience” you’re handing them is of no benefit, and is liable to turn out exactly as it did.

I don’t really think that throwing in 2 inexperienced CBs & an inexperienced keeper at the same time is a reasonable measure of how capable any of them are of stepping up when needed. It would have been much more sensible (and realistic!) to maybe start 1 of the 3, then give the others some game time by using substitutions. The drop off in quality we saw last night wouldn’t have been as severe if it was just 1 out of Hart, Corr & Murdoch being brought in with a more experienced defence around them, and would also have been a lot closer to the likely real-world circumstances that we would be in if we needed to play one of them in the championship due to injury/suspension etc

It's been said before but Kerr Robertson conducts himself really well when being interviewed and is very mature when speaking about football. Hopefully he can find the consistency to be an important player for us.

For the millionth time, that's what we already knew. No one is expecting us to have a further two centre backs of equal standard to the starting two sitting on the bench every week, but we already knew that there was a massive drop off to Corr that means he is not dependable cover and should be moved on for an alternative in January. We didn't need last night to come to that conclusion.

Disgraceful result. For the first time this season, I’d probably question the lack of effort there. Their two goals were horrendous from us, the second one is so so so bad though. Corr dicking about on the ball and for some reason, passing a 25 yard pass with height on it but then Murdoch takes an age to clear it and then slips on his arse. Horrendous. Corr is the worse player in the squad by a mile and should be away in January. An absolute bombscare. He’ll be out of senior football within two years. Just so disappointing and a waste of a journey. Stirling ffs.

? The keeper perhaps, but the likes of Corr and Hart were ostensibly signed as first team options. If one or either of them, as well as others in the team can't do the job against the worst team in the SPFL, then that information is worth having just before the January transfer window opens. Explain how it is a disastrous result please.

Dumped out by L2 part-timers down at the arse-end of their table. A pathetic embarrassment. FTFY

Why 'somehow'?

A thoroughly deserved win. While I was concerned from afar about last week's scoreline as being a drop-off from recent levels (most obviously at Ross County), the team's performance tonight was really good overall. We were aggressive in winning the ball, mostly forward thinking with our passes and played some really good (occssionally risky) balls in the first half. The final ball was hit and miss, but we played some really good and smart football to get into the final third. My only concern was that our defence lacked protection and had to do a bit too much when we lost the ball in the first half, but we still should have been in front by half time. QP got a spawny goal from a blocked shot, when we had at least 4-5 similar efforts in the game and didn't get the good fortune of a rebound. The second half was one-way traffic in attempts at goal, and the only disappointment for me was that we didn't keep the momentum going in the final 15 minutes of normal time. O'Halloran's worldy finish was fully deserved, but happened when the game seemed destined to fizzle out.

Well deserved three points. Queens park offered nothing and other than the goal didn't threaten us all night. We weren't brilliant in the final third the amount of times we were in good positions and just didn't have a final ball was criminal Moffat was the main culprit. Thought Adeloye was good and held the ball up well and took his penalty well, O'Halloran with a wonder finish no idea how he has managed to do that, also intersting he was put up top could be another option for us. Credit to the players aswell must have been a hard few weeks with what has gone but thats been two gritty performances and two wins take that all day long. Keep building momentum and on to the next one.

Finish Beauty of an assist from Shaw again.

What a goal from O'Halloran! Thought we deserved to win that, didn't think it would take that kind of finish though.

Don't forget about all their big plans for us to have cutting edge technology at the stadium. Must be due by now.

The infrastructure, etc might not be best suited but at the end of the day a team should be setting out to win every game. If the board said we're aiming to have a premier league infrastructure in year or two it's understandable (and obvious) but it's really frustrating when a manager has that attitude with an ambition of finishing between 8th and 5th. It's not exactly selling the club to players of fans.

I really don't understand this mentality. Even if we lost every single game, a year in the top flight would be a massive boost to the clubs finances. The only way this type of chat makes sense is if there is some issue with the stadium or facilities that would require us to spend a crippling amount of money to rectify in order to be allowed up.

It's pretty clear we aren't ready to be promoted the club should be aiming for the playoffs and thats what we are doing. I dont think its a negative viewpoint it just puts things into perspective I dont disagree what what he is saying. Quite intresting we are looking at applicants from all over the world. A foreign manager at Morton? Surely not

On the subject of Murray, I wonder if the terms of his contract at big-spending Raith Rvoers is a reason why he’s not got a job yet. Given the exorbitant salaries the big-spending Fifers are rumoured to pay, and Murray having signed a lucrative new deal not long before being sacked by the big-spending Stark’s Park club, could it be a case that by going back into management he may have to forego some of the mammoth compensation agreed with the big-spending Kirkcaldy club?

Last time I was there I was losing the plot and calling for Duffys head (one of the many times I did that season). 3-1 down with 10 mins to play. End up winning 4-3. Glorious.

That’s an absolute disgrace. For such an experienced manager to select such an inexperienced defensive lineup in those conditions is unforgivable. We’re leaving money on the table by changing the team unnecessarily. With the prize money on offer, and the realistic chance of a cup final appearance, it’s just so infuriating. There’s no way he should be getting the job after that, even if he did want it.

I don't understand your claim here. Hart is clearly down the pecking order because of what he does in training - that's the job of the coaching staff. Does this mean that backup options should never be expected to go out on the park against a team far lower than the level they were signed to compete against, and do a competent job? What other, nice plump soft balls are we waiting for in order to rotate our squad of full-time professionals around for? That applies across the team btw - not a criticism of Hart's performance. I don't see anyone in that starting XI this evening, who has been left cruelly exposed at work by being expected to beat Stirling fucking Albion.

What the fuck is wrong with you? Are you that laddie sat in the Norseman with the Labrador and the white stick? I note that Dougie's big-spending Raith didn't seem to have too many problems in slamming 5 past Accies.